The following selections are the sort of things I'll be reading from July through September. A few of them - like Mechanique - I've read already, but plan to read again because the experience was enjoyable the first time around, I have to give it another go. What's on your summer reading list?
A Dance With Dragons by George R.R. Martin
For the next few weeks, I'm going to lose myself in Westeros, reading George R.R. Martin's A Dance With Dragons, book five in his A Song of Ice and Fire series. It's been a long wait, but the interim gave me ample time to reread ther series twice more. If you haven't begun reading this series or haven't watched the HBO adaption of it, you must. You will not be disappointed. Friends I've recommended the series to who didn't like epic fantasy have fallen in love with books. Join us. Join us. Join us. Brainsss.
Mechanique: A Tale of the Circus Tresaulti by Genevieve Valentine
This will be my second reading of this wonderful novel; and, in fact, I will be reviewing it here in a few weeks. A circus act led by the enigmatic Boss travels a war-torn world. Several of the performers fight over a set of very special wings, and our young narrator ruminates on what, if anything, it all means. It's a novel that holds its secrets close and I suspect rewards more with each reading. Right now, this is the best novel I've read this year.
The Thackery T. Lambshead Cabinet of Curiosities, edited by Jeff and Ann Vandermeer
By all accounts, this is going to a fairly whimsical anthology of the late Dr. Thackery T. Lambshead and the oddities and curiosities discovered in his home after his death. Two of my Clarion cohorts, Tom Underberg and Kali Wallace, have pieces appearing in the anthology; the Cabinet also has stories by fine writers like Ted Chiang, Naomi Novik, Reza Negarestani, Amal El-Mohtar, Charles Yu, Rachel Swirsky, among others. Very exciting!
The Disposessed by Ursula K. Le Guin
This is a novel I should've read a long time ago, but never did. Shame on me. A classic of SF. Hell, pretty much everything le Guin has written is a classic of SF.
The One Marvelous Thing by Rikki Ducornet
I've been hearing Ducornet's name a lot lately along with "surreal," "absurd," "weird," "postmodern," etc. It used to be a combination of those words would scare me off the path, but no more, I suppose. I also hear she's great and have been scolded for not having read her work before. Though Ducornet has a new novel out, Netsuke, I'm starting with her collection of fantastical short stories, The One Marvelous Thing.
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