Currently reading Empire of Wild by Cherie Dimaline.

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Finished:

Old Man’s War by John Scalzi (military sci-fi)

Old people enlist in the galactic military in exchange for new, younger bodies. Follows one particular old man through basic training and a series of battles during his first two years of service.

So I ended up going back through some reviews of this, because it’s well-liked/often recommended, and I wasn’t a big fan: apparently the context I’m missing is that it’s meant to be a subversion/snark of classic pulp like Heinlein. Lacking that connection, I stand by my opinion from last week, which is that while it’s certainly not bad, I personally wanted a lot more from either the plot, characters, or commentary.

Bingo squares: war (HM), late to the party (HM)

The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson (supernatural gothic horror)

An academic invites a small group of people to spend the summer at a reputedly haunted mansion, in order to gather research on the supernatural. Surely, nothing will go wrong.

Aside from a few bits and pieces, this is an entirely different story from the Flanagan show (haven’t seen the movie). There’s a lot of things left out in the interactions between characters, which I found kind of frustrating in the first half, but as the narrative gets more and more dreamlike, it becomes apparent that that’s intentional. I ended up quite liking this, and I can see why it’s a classic.

Bingo squares: adaptation, orange, x of y, alliterative (HM)

I think one of the tricks is to purposefully plan time to cook that’s not right before you’re planning to eat, so it’s an activity/hobby, not a necessity. If I have to cook when I’m hungry, I’ll probably just make do instead, but if I say “ok, Saturday afternoon, I’m gonna make a pot of soup, because that’ll be delicious later,” it’s a lot less dreadful, imo.

Let me know how you end up liking it!

This is gonna sound dumb, but it was too much war for me. I imagine the battle after battle after battle + blur of faceless soldiers was the point, but I needed either a more interesting plot or more character work for it to hold my attention. I haven’t read any other Scalzi, but I liked the narrative voice well enough in Old Man’s War to be down to try something else by him at some point.

Currently finishing up Old Man’s War by John Scalzi. It’s well-written, but not really my cup of tea.

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Finished:

The Curse of Chalion by Lois McMaster Bujold

An ex-soldier gets a job as a tutor/secretary for a member of the ruling family, helping her navigate court life, enemy schemes, and the titular family curse.

As I said previously, this was too slow for my taste, but I liked the characters and the plot. I did spend a lot of the book hoping the 35yo MC would get introduced to a potential love interest that wasn’t 19, though. (Thankfully, not much time is spent on their crushing.)

Bingo squares: x of y, steppin’ up (HM), political (HM)

Should be wrapping up The Curse of Chalion by Lois McMaster Bujold in the next day or two. I like it enough to finish it, but apart from a few sections, it’s much slower than I generally care for.

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Read:

The Keeper of Lost Causes by Jussi Adler-Olsen

After an investigation goes sideways, a detective gets relegated to running a cold cases department with just one assistant. They end up looking into a politician’s disappearance from 5 years ago.

I enjoyed this (and it was a fast read), but the details of the disappearance are kind of gimmicky. I’ve since watched the Danish adaptation, which I found kind of disappointing for how much they stripped out and tweaked (although they did tone down some of the stereotyping, thankfully). Planning to watch the new series that came out last week as well (Department Q), to see how it compares.

Bingo squares: continent HM, motion picture, orange, x of y, alliterative, award HM, responsibility HM, jerk HM (maybe?)

Small Gods of Calamity by Sam Kyung Yoo

A detective that can see spirits gets involved in a case that’s connected to his past, and is forced to team up with someone he hates to defeat the soul-eating monster behind it all.

This was a fun little novella, incorporating elements of Korean shamanism into kind of an urban fantasy with horror elements. It’s well-paced, and manages to give you a decent sense of the main characters, despite being plot-heavy. I had a couple of small quibbles with it, but will gladly try more from this author.

Bingo squares: minority author HM, x of y, short, lgbtqia+

I don’t read on desktop, but I use Pocketbook Reader on my tablet. Free with no ads, and lets me use any colors I want, override terrible embedded fonts and cramped line height, change margins, etc. It does have a couple of quirks that annoy me from time to time, but I haven’t found a replacement I like better.

Curse of Chalion by Lois McMaster Bujold. I enjoyed the first two books (Cordelia prequels) in the author’s Vorkosigan Saga enough to want to try something else by her (since I’ve failed twice to get into the first Miles book). I think this is her only other big series? Anyway, it’s been sitting on my TBR pile for a long time now, and I finally picked it up to read for bingo.

I don’t mind a slow start, but IMO this had a very looooong slow start (~30%), to the point I put it down to read something else. Of course, it turns out I paused right before things started to pick up, so now I’m chugging along with it just fine.

You might have a look at Darebee workouts/programs. Can search by ‘upper’, ‘abs’, etc to cut out a lot of stuff your foot might have trouble with.

And then Loki got preggers, and gave birth to Sleipnir, an 8-legged horse that Odin rides around.

Currently in the middle of The Keeper of Lost Causes by Jussi Adler-Olsen. I’ve watched a lot of Scandinoir, but this my first time reading it! Too many flashbacks for my taste, but otherwise it’s engaging, and I’m looking forward to finding out if my theories are correct.

Also still reading No One Will Come Back for Us by Premee Mohamed. All the stories so far feel like the equivalent of art sketches, but I’m ok with that.

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Read River of Teeth by Sarah Gailey. Fun little novella that’s essentially a western, but with hippos instead of horses, set in the South. I saw some reviews that felt it wasn’t long enough or developed enough, but I thought it was fine. I enjoy plot-focused stuff, though, so YMMV.

Bingo squares: saddle up HM, lgbtqia+ HM, creature HM, minority author, x of y

I’ve seen the adaptation of The City & The City, but while I remember liking it, the concept seemed pretty gimmicky. Does it feel more natural/realistic in the book?

I’ve started No One Will Come Back for Us by Premee Mohamed, a collection of cosmic horror stories. I do love me some cosmic/eldritch horror, and The Butcher of the Forest was one of my favorite reads from last year, so I’m hoping I’ll enjoy this, too.

Despite not really being a short story person, I tentatively picked out 2 or 3 collections for bingo this year. My plan is to read them in pieces, between other things. We’ll see how it goes!

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Finished Golden Terrace, Vol. 1 by Cang Wu Bin Bai. I found this okay: the translation was pretty dry, the pacing was a bit rough, and I never got invested in the romance. I am interested in how all the political intrigue plays out, but I doubt I’ll get around to reading the second volume (nothing gets wrapped up at the end of Vol. 1). This is probably a good pick if you like romance-focused historical C-dramas (it’s got the vibes), but I don’t think I’d recommend it otherwise.

Bingo squares: different continent (HM), minority author, LGBTQIA+ (HM), political, jerk (HM)

Agreed! Although, I drop a ton of books within a few pages, and still end up with a lot of “okay” reads. I don’t super mind that; if I only read things I happily breezed through or couldn’t put down, I’d only end up finishing one or two books a year. Maybe I’m just hard to please?

I like Temple more than I thought I would, but the metronome mechanic is annoying. You don’t have to hit everything on beat, but ofc it’s better if you do. It’d be nice if there was an option either to always have the ticking on, or to have the beat reset to match the first cast in a chain.

Shout out to the visual designer, though: it’s hard to give them a bad color scheme, and the glitter on one of the color channels is a nice touch.

You might look up ‘linked stories’/‘novel in stories’: they’re single-author collections that have all the stories set in the same world, often with shared characters, sometimes with an overarching or background narrative. Might be a good middle ground?

Currently reading Golden Terrace: Volume 1 by Cang Wu Bin Bai. Not my normal fare, but I was lured in by the description: historical Chinese PG-13 M/M arranged marriage romance with lots of court politics. I’m not super convinced by the romance so far, but the political aspect seems solid. I am getting a little lost with how many characters have already been introduced to the plot, but hopefully that’ll settle down once all the important stuff’s been established.

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Finished London Rules by Mick Herron. Basically more of the same as far as the Slough House series goes, and fun enough. Herron’s bad guys are never really fleshed out or nuanced, which is fine, but I found the ones in London Rules to be especially one-dimensional stereotypes, to the point it was a little off-putting.

PocketBook Reader lets you change the background color to whatever you want. You can also change the line spacing/font size/etc, and it’s possible to add fonts as well, if you need something specific. It can be a little convoluted to make it do what you want, though, and there’s not much documentation. (I’m happy enough with it, but YMMV.) Also, no automatic line highlighting that I can find.

It did: they gave Drummer Michio Pa’s story in the last couple seasons.