...does what it says on the tin
This is the latest Murderbot novella, in which Murderbot is on a rescue mission along with Three. As you would expect from this series, things do not go entirely to plan. This is a lot of fun, and I still really enjoy Murderbot's narrative voice. It doesn't really do anything new, though. I imagine this will be on the 2027 Hugo Shortlist, hence my writing my brief thoughts down now :) comments
I've reviewed the novels, novellas, and films, but didn't get round to ranking them until yesterday, the day before the voting deadline. So, here's how I voted: Best Novel A Drop of Corruption The Everlasting The Incandescent The Raven Scholar Death of the Author Best Novella The River Has Roots Cinder House What Stalks the Deep The Summer War Automatic Noodle Murder by Memory Best Dramatic…
I think this is the last category I'm going to be able to read before the voting deadline; again I'll try and say something non-spoilery about them all. Six People to Revise You by J.R. Dawson. I read this when it came out on a recommendation, and I still think it's great - about how we see ourselves and how others see us. 10 Visions of the Future; or, Self-Care for the End of Days by Samantha…
I've read these; it's hard to say much about them without spoilers, so here's a voting order and a brief note about each: When He Calls Your Name by Catherynne M. Valente. A nice blend of a song and a horror genre. Rapport: Friendship, Solidarity, Communion, Empathy by Martha Wells. I love a Murderbot story, although this one's a bit pedestrian. Never Eaten Vegetables by H.H. Pak. A generation…
Again, in order of reading: Automatic Noodle by Annalee Newitz is a post-apocalyptic story where some robots are trying to survive after the restaurant that they worked for went bust. It's a pleasant read despite the setting, and while the comments about capitalism and prejudice are well-aimed, it's quite cozy in tone. Enjoyable, but not one to write home about. The Summer War by Naomi Novik. I've…
First in reading order, What Stalks the Deep by T. Kingfisher. This is a follow-on from What Moves the Dead and What Feasts at Night , and is loosely inspired by Lovecraft's At the Mountains of Madness . Alex Easton (the same narrator as before) is summoned to West Virginia, where someone has vanished, and there are reports of weird goings-on in an abandoned coal mine. I liked how past trauma…
I seem to have read a few books recently with ( a particular plot device ) , all of which have to deal with ( an issue with that plot device ) . I think The Everlasting does this pretty well. That combined with a pleasing narrative voice (or two) made this a very enjoyable read for me. Thematically, it talks about how we tell stories about ourselves and others, and how those stories get changed or…
I've been meaning to write these for a couple of weeks, so they're going to be a bit short and rubbish now. Better late than never... I've watched the last of the films, which was Superman. It's fun in a mostly-standard-superhero film kind of way, but I thought the way it raised the "hang on, is having powerful vigilantes beating people up without any sort of due process of law actually good?"…
Mickey Barnes and Timo join an expedition to the planet Niflheim, hoping to outrun a murderous loan-shark. The hapless Mickey signs up as an "Expendable", not realising this means he will have his memories uploaded to a computer and then be made to do all sorts of hazardous work, getting cloned/printed afresh every time he dies. He rapidly makes his way up to Mickey 17 before being abandoned in an…
The introduction to Sinners tells us that various folk traditions (including the Choctaw) hold that some people are born with the ability to make music so true that it pierces the veil between life and death, conjuring spirits from the past and future; whilst it can bring healing, it can also attract evil. For the first half or so of the film, we are left unclear if this is a metaphor about the…
There have been a number of magic school books in recent years; in The Incandescent , we largely follow events at Chetwood School through the eyes of Dr Walden, Director of Magic. She is an expert magician, and clearly an effective teacher, if a little weak on the pastoral front. And the fact that she is back as a staff member at what was once her own secondary school is definitely not a sign…
This is the first of a trilogy, set in Orrun, a fantasy world where people tend to associate with one of 8 (demi-)gods, one of which is the Raven. We see much (but not all) of the action through the eyes of Neema, the Raven Scholar of the title. Hodgson has written murder mysteries before, and it's not entirely surprising then that Neema ends up tasked with investigating a murder. It's not,…
The announcement of the 2026 Hugo shortlist reminded me I never posted about how I voted for the 2025 awards. I'm afraid it's now too late to add any reviews beyond what I wrote at the time, but here is how I ranked the finalists (the winning entry in bold): Best Novel The Tainted Cup A Sorceress Comes to Call Someone You Can Build a Nest In The Ministry of Time Alien Clay Service Model Best…
Three books I've read recently. First is A Drop of Corruption , the sequel to The Tainted Cup , which I really liked . I also really enjoyed A Drop of Corruption ; like the previous book it's a great page-turner with a twisty mystery plot, with a well-drawn world and some interesting themes (particularly around governance and social institutions). Recommended, but read The Tainted Cup first.…
The second chapter of our book group book (Rowan Williams' Being Human ) is "What is a person?" He starts by paraphrasing a slightly obscure[0] essay by Vladimir Lossky, who, he says, declares that we lack good vocabulary to distinguish between something that is simply one unique instance of its kind , and the quality (whatever it is) that makes a conscious thing of this kind irreducible to its…
This is the last of this year's Hugo Award shortlist for dramatic presentation long form. It's very strange. Owen and Maddy are disaffected teenagers who bond over their obsession with The Pink Opaque . How much of it is warping their perception of reality or actually warping reality is left unanswered; the whole film proceeds at a very slow pace, and that plus the occasional breaking of the…
It's past the voting deadline, and I didn't vote in the dramatic presentation long form category, but I'm still trying to watch the shortlisted films. I'd not seen Dune part one, so watched that and then part two (which was on the shortlist this year). It's one book turned into two lengthy films, and part two has a rubbish ending - we get no sense of Paul becoming Emperor as any kind of triumph…
It's time to vote for the next Chancellor ( previously ); I've looked at the candidates and their statements , but still don't have an obvious-to-me choice of who to vote for. When I asked on mastodon , I got two responses (one for Sandi Toksvig, one for her or Gina Miller); FB has shown me one friend saying that Chris Smith is "a nice bloke, but also the only candidate worth of the role"; and…
This is a prequel to Mad Max: Fury Road, and provides the backstory for Imperator Furiosa in that film. So here we see her life from a child in one of the remaining green places to the Imperator we meet in Fury Road. Aside from the opening, this film is very much in the orange-and-black dieselpunk post-apocalyptic vein of Fury Road. There's a lot of high-speed chase-come-fight sequences, which are…
This is the first in a two-part adaptation of the musical of the book (which is in turn a re-interpretation of The Wizard of Oz investigating the Wicked Witch of the West's backstory). It's a very long time since I saw The Wizard of Oz , and I've not read the Wicked book nor seen the musical. ( review, with spoilers ) The songs are reasonable (though none of them have stuck in my head), the leads…
I've consumed two things from the 2025 Hugo Award shortlist recently. They're Quite Different. The first was The Tainted Cup, by Robert Jackson Bennett. I loved this; it's a crime thriller set in a fantasy world, where The Empire exists to keep its people safe from Leviathans. It has a lot of what you'd expect from the crime genre; whilst a couple of times that meant that I spotted the plot twist…
This book is subtitled "Feminist bicycle science fiction stories of transgender and nonbinary adventurers", and that's a pretty good summary of the contents. The stories are delightful, and capture some truths about the experience of riding a bike as well as trans & non-binary representation. They're fun stories, but also thought-provoking, and generally at least somewhat optimistic. I enjoyed…
I've recently been watching Shetland on iPlayer. It's a pretty good crime series set on Shetland. After a bit of a wait, I got Raven Black , the first of the books on which the series is based, from the library. It's not the first novel to be adapted (they did Red Bones , the third book, first), so it's possible some of the changes relate to events that will happen later in book-canon, but I was…
I've already voted for the Best Novel. This is my voting for the further categories I've had time to engage with - Novella, Novelette, Short Story, and Dramatic Presentation Long Form. ( Read more... ) comments
Again, in reading order: 美食三品 ( Tasting the Future Delicacy Three Times ), 宝树 / Baoshu. What if you could experience food as another eats it? Quite a nice story, but I found the biology hard to swallow... The Sound of Children Screaming , Rachael K. Jones. An angry story about gun violence in schools. The Mausoleum’s Children , Aliette de Bodard. A strange and well-sketched world, with some good…