Books I read in August

[unicornduke]

Giving this a try

• Babel by R.F. Kuang - really wonderful fantasy building of an alternate British Empire era. Really neat and kinda sad. Library e-book
• Legends and Lattes by Travis Baldree - delightful, sweet, lots of interesting ideas in a little novel. Library e-book
• The Mimicking of Known Successes by Malka Older - Sherlock Holmes on Mars, really interesting although it took me a bit to remember it was a Sherlock Holmes-esque book. Pretty short. Library audiobook
• Nettle & Bone by T. Kingfisher re-read - a wonderful story and I appreciate the details on spinning. Library e-book
• Handwoven Magazine Issue   - Library e-book
• A Marvellous Light by Freya Marske re-read - super interesting in that it has really neat magical worldbuilding, then shows the other ways magic can be done than the "right" way. Has some explicit stuff but easy enough to skip. Library e-book
• The House in the Cerulean Sea by TJ Klune - Nice little gay book, more young adult or young teen book but a sweet little read anyway. Library e-book
• The Queen of Ieflaria by Effie Calvin - Magical princess meets disaster lesbian princess. Delightful if a little different style of writing than a lot of fantasy books. Library e-book
• Daughter of the Sun by Effie Calvin - Number two in this series, more lesbians but one is a paladin and one is a chaos goddess. Drama! Library e-book
• The Queen of Rhodia by Effie Calvin - Number three in the series, all the lesbians plus dragons! Library e-book
• The Restless Truth by Freya Marske re-read - delightful and lighter than A Marvellous Light, magic and intrigue and hijinks. Has some explicit stuff but easy enough to skip. Library e-book
• The Martian by Andy Weir - I get why a lot of people liked it, it was a fun if slightly stressful read. Library e-book
• Thornhedge by T. Kingfisher - sweet little story. Library e-book
• The Masked City by Genevieve Cogman - second in the series, pretty romping adventure. Really liking the series overall. Physical personal book

I read a lot this month huh

Comments

[reedrover]

If you are enjoying T. Kingfisher and want more, I highly recommend both The Wizard’s Guide to Defensive Baking and Swordheart. The WGTDB is more YA and Swordheart is a sweet hetero romance with a wonderful non-binary secondary character.

[unicornduke]

I've read all of T. Kingfisher's stuff except for the horror novels since I don't like horror! I was contemplating a re-read of Swordheart and the Paladin books since I love them so much.

[reedrover]

Same here. I appreciate that her horror book are well-received by someone else and I’ll stick to Digger and the Clocktaur/Swordheart (White Rat) books.

Have you read Lois Bujold’s Penric series? They have a similar flavor and I adore the main characters.

[unicornduke]

I haven't read that series, I will give it a try! I'm always looking for interesting and relatively lighthearted adventures.

[reedrover]

Welllll… Not all of them are lighthearted. The most recent one (#11 in the series) explores the one aspect of his god that is neither lighthearted nor fun.

Bujold won five Hugos and I think she deserves them. Her novel Paladin of Souls cut right through me in all the best ways.

[unicornduke]

I mean, there's a spectrum. Right now I'm reading The Oleander Sword, which is amazing but literally everyone is Suffering and no one is having anything nice happen, so even vaguely near T Kingfisher lighthearted might be nice once I finish this book. I'll check them out!

[rmc28]

Ooh, the ones on this list I've read I've liked, so I should probably look at the ones I haven't :-)

[unicornduke]

I've definitely gotten books from your posts so I definitely think there's an overlap in our reading taste!