mistressofmuses

... and maybe having already written things out will be somehow motivating. Or keep me from struggling to figure out my next thing to read.

So here's the list of books I'm hoping to read soon-ish.

This is currently the order I'm thinking of, though it's very possible that it'll change, especially the farther I get on the list. Something else is always liable to cut in line.

- finish Seasonal Fears by Seanan McGuire. (The first bit was really slow-going for me. I LIKE the book, but the first bit had a lot of what felt like repeated explanations of the world and what was going on, and while I get that the characters were stuck in disbelief, I just wanted to be like "yes, yes. This is a fantasy novel, I am perfectly willing to take you at your word that this is a thing, please don't explain it a fourth time.")

- Be the Serpent by Seanan McGuire. The most recent October Daye book, and one that promises to be a big turning point in the series. Taylor and I had Theories, and I look forward to seeing if we were right or totally wrong. Trying very hard to avoid spoilers.

- A Taste of Gold and Iron by Alexandra Rowland. Sounds like my kind of gay fantasy romance.

- Spelunking Through Hell by Seanan McGuire. The most recent Incryptid book. I'd put off reading it because I wanted to read all of the short stories about Alice and Thomas (mainly from the author's patreon) before reading it. Now Taylor and I have done so!

- A Memory Called Empire by Arkady Martine. This was one of Taylor's favorites of the books they've read recently, and they bought me the duology for my birthday.

- A Desolation Called Peace by Arkady Martine. Part two of the duology. And the winner of this year's Hugo for best novel!

- Hummingbird Salamander by Jeff VanderMeer. The Southern Reach trilogy by this author is one of my favorites, but I haven't read any of his other stuff. (I need to read the Ambergris trilogy, too.) But this one is a standalone, and I've been looking forward to it.

- Hunger Pangs by Joy Demorra. Supernatural poly romance! I was hype for this one before it came out, but just could not get more than a couple pages into the ebook. I really think it might be that I just genuinely hate ebooks. (Not conceptually! I love them in theory! But I don't know that I have EVER managed to finish an ebook longer than a short story. I lose interest and focus very quickly, and never have any desire to go back to them.) But I bought myself a paperback copy, so I'll try again!

- Gallant by V.E. Schwab . The comp titles (it was billed as "The Secret Garden meets Crimson Peak") appeal to me quite a lot! Her work is a bit hit or miss for me - I absolutely loved the Shades of Magic trilogy, but some of her other stuff has felt good-but-not-great. But I did enjoy The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue, which was her most recent before this, so I'm hopeful.

This is nowhere near the extent of the TBR list. After that, leaning toward... Ninth House, Cemetery Boys, A Conspiracy of Truths, The Jade Trilogy, the several Wayward Children books I'm behind on, The Inheritance Trilogy, Uprooted... and probably a ton more that I've completely forgotten to list, ha.

This also does not touch on three trilogies that I keep shoving down the urge to reread. The Broken Earth, The Southern Reach, and Newsflesh. All three are absolute favorites, but it's been years since I read them, and I want very much to read them all again. But I feel bad rereading when I have so much I haven't read yet!

Also not listed, but a reread that might be soon-ish on the list: Sparrow Hill Road by Seanan McGuire. The first of the Ghost Roads books, because I want to write that crossover fic and make sure I'm not making any big canon mistakes. (Could also reread books 2 and 3 [Girl in the Green Silk Gown and Angel of the Overpass] but I'm going for more book 1ish vibes with the fic.)

So yes. That's where I'm at, and I know I need to get a SERIOUS move on reading if I'm going to EVER make any progress!

Literally me and Taylor over text right now, discussing the summary of the next October Daye book.

( Mild spoilers for the next book's summary and our stringboard theories )

Finished a book!

I finished reading Dark Rise by C.S. Pacat last night.

Solid 8/10, imo.

My feelings about it were pretty in line with the other reviews I've seen, and it's hard to talk about the things I really liked without spoilers!

I think the book definitely hit its stride (and grabbed my interest) more strongly in the second half than in the first. The first half is very much devoted to setting up the characters and the conflict. It's necessary work, because I don't think the second half (and the ending, especially) would work without that groundwork... It never really bored me, but parts of it were a little slow. A few parts maybe got a little repetitive, though not enough to have stuck with me. I just remember a few times thinking "okay, yeah, I remember this, let's move on!"

The second half *also* I think showed off what I think of as the author's strengths (and what I most enjoyed about her previous work), where different characters know different things and are also hiding different things. The tension that provides for dialogue and toward the reader is really excellent.

I can absolutely see what the author intended and has spoken about with why she wrote it - the desire to subvert the very specific kind of classic pastoral English fantasy series that a lot of us grew up with.

It's far from the first "subverting classic fantasy tropes" work that I've read, but this one let the subversions unfold in a way that I really enjoyed. It's definitely not as shallow a subversion as "gasp, the heroes are actually kind of jerks!" or "but the bad guys are just misunderstood underdogs."

And the very last few pages provided an emotional gutpunch (in a mingled good and bad and complicated way). I want very much to see where it goes from here!

(C.S. Pacat's previous trilogy has what I consider one of the best book twos I've ever read. Book two of a trilogy is often the most difficult one as a reader, imo. The first book sets up the world and the arc story, the third book gets the big climax and resolution... but book two is usually the one that feels filler-y, even if I enjoy the story. But Prince's Gambit was the strongest second book I think I've ever read. So I have hopes for whatever comes after Dark Rise.)

I think I'm giving up on writing a truly in-depth review, so I'm just sharing a quicker bit:

River of Teeth was a ton of fun to read! The thing that I keep saying about it is that they was absolute brain candy, and that that is not a complaint!

The writing style was very fast-paced and cinematic, so the whole thing really felt like watching a movie in my head. It has a bit of an action-movie vibe, but with a lot of the typical action/adventure archetypes and tropes skewed into tropes that appeal specifically to me, haha. It reminded me a little bit of reading id-fic: the kind of fic where someone just crams all of their favorite tropes and character types into one work, because why not? It certainly hits on a lot of my faves: characters with grey morality, interesting alternate history setting, ~revenge~, the big bad is a corrupt businessman, and Almost Everyone is Queer. (Heck, there’s even a very specific “there was only one bed” scene.)

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The basic plot of River of Teeth:
The story is set in an alternate 1890s United States in which hippos were previously imported into the American south to be a farmed meat source. The Mississippi River has been dammed to control the flow of water into The Harriet – a specific area set aside for the hippos from the dam to The Gate, which keeps them from going into the Gulf of Mexico.

Unfortunately, some things went wrong. There was an economic crash (The Hippo Bust of 1859), and since, many hippos have roamed wild on the Harriet. These dangerous ferals will eat just about anything, including people, which has made the entire area extraordinarily dangerous.

Our main character, Winslow Houndstooth, has been hired by the US Government to get the ferals out of The Harriet, freeing up the Mississippi as a viable trade route again.

He hires on a crew to help him with this task:
Regina “Archie” Archembault, a professional grifter that he’s worked with before.
Hero, an expert in both poisons and demolitions, though supposedly retired.
Adelia Reyes, a well-known assassin.
Cal Hotchkiss, a hopper (essentially a hippo cowboy) with whom he has a complicated and not-great history.

But Houndstooth has a different motive in mind: revenge against the person he holds responsible for the destruction of his ranch years before.

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Just about everyone is queer (and whether that's a thing you like in a story or not may impact how enjoyable you find the books.) The MC (Winslow Houndstooth, who has the coolest name ever) is bi; Hero, his love interest, is nonbinary; Archie is revealed later in the book to be genderfluid; Adelia is a lesbian; Cal is the token cishet.
I enjoyed it, because I like the kind of big escapist action/adventure, and getting to have it be about a group that looks a lot more like the people I surround myself with is fun. The author is also nonbinary!

I had a few mild complaints in the book:
There were a few moments in which realism was sacrificed for "rule of cool", and some could have been done without, but that's also part of the genre.
I had trouble with the similarity between some of the names: Archie and Adelia, plus Hero's hippo is named Abigail. Two of the other hippos belonging to the team are Ruby and Rosa. It was just a lot to keep track of.
Some of the character developments/relationships would have been more impactful with a longer book and more time spent on them, but honestly "I just wish it was longer" isn't much of a complaint.
One slightly bigger one: there was a plot thing, which I thought was playing out one way... and it did... but that was supposed to be a twist? Still not the worst, just threw me a bit.

The sequel, Taste of Marrow picks up right after the first book leaves off, and I would say is absolutely worth reading if you enjoy the first book (especially as there are a few threads that are left hanging.) While River of Teeth does have a complete arc, Taste of Marrow concludes the rest of the plot quite well.

Today was a MUCH better day than yesterday.

We had sort of a lazy morning, which was nice in and of itself.

Then we went to a consignment tack store in the area, looking for some tack pieces that Alex needs. We found one of the three things on the list, so that was pretty good. They also had some newly consigned Breyer horses that we came home with. Some little vintage ones that are beat up, but can be used as bodies for Alex (or me) to customize. (Like that model painting month challenge thing I did in February.) Also a nicer resin sculpture that was probably never taken out of its box, so that was a nice find, too.

After that we headed up to Boulder to visit Boulder Book Store, which was the store I'd been hoping to visit yesterday. I'm actually really glad we waited until today, because even if we'd gotten up there yesterday, we would have been under a huge time crunch to get back. Today we could take as long as we wanted.

I'd never been to Boulder Book Store before, but have been wanting to find a non-chain store for a while. I love the ease of Amazon, but also know how shitty they are, and Barnes and Nobel is fine, but impersonal. Denver has Tattered Cover, which is pretty well-known, but they took some really disappointing political positions in the last few years, re: support of "urban camping" bans in Denver.

I loved this store. *_* It's an old building, on three floors, including a basement. They have just rooms and rooms of books, with lots of recommendation sections thrown in. It was fun just to wander around, honestly. (Also, super strict on masks and temp checks at the door, so I was glad for that - this is the first large non-grocery/big-box store I've been in for over a year.)

Originally, I'd wanted to go up in the hopes of getting the "indie bookstore edition" of Hummingbird Salamander by Jeff VanderMeer. He did a virtual event "at" the store last week, but it was on a night I had to work, so I couldn't attend. There was also the special edition (signed, and including an extra appendix) for Indie Bookstore Day, which was last Saturday. But... that's also a workday. I contacted the store, but they said they couldn't hold the special edition, which was fair.

I figured that version would be sold out, but I'd still rather dump my money on the indie store than Amazon. They had a display up for Indie Bookstore Day, but the book wasn't there, so I grabbed a regular edition... but then in a different part of the store, there was ONE copy set aside on a display of very miscellaneous books, so I snapped that up, haha. Very lucky!

I also bought Fugitive Telemetry by Martha Wells, the most recent Murderbot novella. I'm very excited for it, haha. Taylor's copy is stuck in Seattle, apparently, so I may wait for them to get theirs to read it.

And I bought myself Six of Crows and Crooked Kingdom, since previously I'd just borrowed Taylor's copies. All the talk about Shadow and Bone (and several people happy about the decision to include some of the Crows characters in the show) has had me thinking about the books again, and I know I'll want to reread them.

Alex actually also enjoyed wandering around the bookstore, too. He's not a big reader (after the seizures he had 12+ years ago, he said he got frustrated with his slowed reading speed), though sometimes I'll read stuff aloud if there's something he's interested in. (I love reading aloud, so he may also just be humoring me.)

He got The Only Good Indians by Stephen Graham Jones, a horror novel. The author is a professor at CU. Taylor read that one last year, and liked it, though they said there were some sections they liked a lot more than the rest. But I think Alex might enjoy it.

He also bought Kitchen Confidential. He took Anthony Bourdain's death extremely hard, but has wanted to read his books.

He also got a few little things for his best friend - some stickers and stuff.

This was absolutely our big splurge purchase day for the next month or two, but it was nice.

After that, we wandered the Pearl Street mall for a bit. We got some ice cream, and enjoyed the sun. A pine tree dripped sap into my hair, which smelled nice, at least, for as terrible as that is to get out.


There was a cute little play area that had this guy, and I love him.

Alex mentioned again that he wishes we could live up there, that he thinks he'd be happy there. I wish we could, too. People talk some mad shit about Boulder, because it's full of rich hippies. (It's a lot like Portland or Austin, in that it attracts a lot of people interested in the quirky/weird/artsy vibes, but then means its pretty expensive and prone to a lot of gentrification.) But I like being in a place where half the houses have pride flags, and BLM signs, and people advocating for police reform.
While I don't think it's likely we'll be able to afford to live up there, I do think it'd be worth trying to visit more. And just in general to do a bit of local travel. The whole quarantine thing definitely made the last year atypical, but it does feel like it's been a long time since we ventured anywhere outside of a set routine.