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What I read -- October 2016



“This Census Taker” by China Mieville. Got it for my birthday. It was on my list. The worldbuilding is so good.

“Goldenhand” by Garth Nix. Got it for my birthday. I’d mentioned to the boy probably two months ago that it was coming out and that it would make a good gift, so he did very well remembering. This was unputdownable.

“Disappearance at Devil’s Rock” by Paul Tremblay. Gemma Files mentioned it on Twitter, and her taste and mine often align (she’d probably feel weird to know how often I buy music she mentions, but sometimes you just need a black mass when you’re on crunch time at work, you know?) I borrowed it from the library, just to mix things up a bit. My sister and I were chatting about horror novels versus horror movies, and how the latter leave you messed up but the former not so much. This book had some really creepy moments – there’s one where a character refers to another one looking in their window, and then I had to go to bed… well, that wasn’t the best. The gradual unpeeling of the truth of what the boys had been up to all summer was really messed up in the most well-written way. I googled the state park too, which really exists. And the rock. It didn’t need to be, but it was neat to see that it was real.

“The Tropic of Serpents” by Marie Brennan is book 2 in the series. Ed got books 3 and 4 for his birthday back in September, and I got book 1 for Christmas the year it came out. This year I got book 2 for my birthday so I can read them in the proper order. I found this a little bit plot-free, but I really liked the female perspective on Victorian adventuring. It seemed more real than most of the fantasy I’ve read before, menstruation being more than just a mild inconvenience, etc. Usually the only inconvenience is clothing, and women apparently don’t menstruate in fiction like ever.
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