Reading Wednesday
Mar. 25th, 2026 06:51 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sabotabbyJust finished: To Ride a Rising Storm by Moniquill Blackgoose. I absolutely loved this—it was a worthy sequel to the first one, and I ended up kind of binge-reading it because it's so compelling even though for the first three quarters, nothing much of anything happens. It's just a slow burn of political tensions so by the time things explode, you should have seen it coming but maybe don't, because as wise and savvy as our heroine is, she's still a 16-year-old girl navigating school, relationships, and family.
I immediately went to one of my Discord servers to squeal about it and was rewarded with some uncomfortable speculation about the author's heritage so I am hoping those rumours aren't true because I need her to be as cool as she seems.
Grendel by John Gardner. I have been meaning to read this for ages as it's one of those books where when people get to know me, they'll say "oh have you read this" and I'll say "no but it's on my list." Anyway it lives up to the hype. I don't know that the idea of telling a well-known story from the monster's perspective was all that new in the 70s, but it's far more than that. It's a literary masterpiece in terms of the prose, which is squelching and visceral, and it takes some unexpected philosophical turns, especially the bits with the dragon and the mad peasant, that feel fresh and relevant even today.
Currently reading: Always On by Helena Trooperman. And now we're back to the world of indie SF. This one is about an inventor, single mom to five children after her husband's death, struggling to get her career back on track. She discovers a way to power cellphones through human static electricity, which brings her in direct conflict with Big Oil. It's pretty interesting, brought down a little by some strange dialogue choices, but overall compelling character and a cool type of plot that the genre doesn't usually do anymore.
I immediately went to one of my Discord servers to squeal about it and was rewarded with some uncomfortable speculation about the author's heritage so I am hoping those rumours aren't true because I need her to be as cool as she seems.
Grendel by John Gardner. I have been meaning to read this for ages as it's one of those books where when people get to know me, they'll say "oh have you read this" and I'll say "no but it's on my list." Anyway it lives up to the hype. I don't know that the idea of telling a well-known story from the monster's perspective was all that new in the 70s, but it's far more than that. It's a literary masterpiece in terms of the prose, which is squelching and visceral, and it takes some unexpected philosophical turns, especially the bits with the dragon and the mad peasant, that feel fresh and relevant even today.
Currently reading: Always On by Helena Trooperman. And now we're back to the world of indie SF. This one is about an inventor, single mom to five children after her husband's death, struggling to get her career back on track. She discovers a way to power cellphones through human static electricity, which brings her in direct conflict with Big Oil. It's pretty interesting, brought down a little by some strange dialogue choices, but overall compelling character and a cool type of plot that the genre doesn't usually do anymore.
