Still working on Foul Days by Genoveva Dimova. It’s fun so far.

Also started Weak Heart by Ban Gilmartin. It’s not at all what I thought it was going to be (it’s less horror, more supernatural angst), but the writing is good. Their other book is listed as new adult, and I think that probably describes this, as well.

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Finished Dark Star by Oliver K. Langmead. Review is in last week’s thread.

Bingo squares: Plays With Words, What’s Yours Is Mine (HM), Mashup, Among the Stars (HM) (technically).

Finished it over the weekend. Despite descriptions being just a line or two, I still got a good sense of everything, thanks to other, strongly evocative lines (like you expect from poetry). In that way, I liked it quite a bit, and will happily try other verse novels in future.

However, in terms of story, I don’t think my opinion of Dark Star rises above “fine”. The noir aspect was about what you’d expect, but the worldbuilding (billed as scifi) was too much–or not enough?–dream logic to work for me. Reminded me a fair bit of A Man of Shadows by Jeff Noon, which I also didn’t really jive with.

Fanart of artist rendition:

I have the sound of this stuck in my head now, thanks.

Finished The House on the Borderland by William Hope Hodgson. I had heard this was a good early horror, and an inspiration to Lovecraft, and I definitely glimpsed that in a few places. The rest of it, however, hoo boy, was that a slog to get through. I’d expected the of-the-period prose style/voice, but it really felt like he smooshed several separate stories into one, with excruciating detail in some parts, and a complete lack in others. The only bright spots, for me, were aspects that seemed like proto-versions of things I’m familiar with (namely, the Dark Sign from Dark Souls, Piglins from Minecraft, and the Beach from Death Stranding), although I have no idea if they were actually inspired by this book or not.

Bingo squares: Older Than You Are (HM), It’s About Time, Among the Stars. May count for Bookception and Stranger in a Strange Land, as well, but ehhh.

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I’m a few pages into a couple of books atm, which I started as treats while I tried to get through The House on the Borderland: Foul Days by Genoveva Dimova, and Dark Star by Oliver Langmead. The latter is a verse novel, which I didn’t realize was a thing! Looking forward to seeing how the experience differs from normal prose.

Awesome, thanks!

Dang.

Would love to know more. What are the starred ones? Which did you like most or least?

I’m not sure how helpful this will be, but generally speaking, I tend to only buy books that I’ve already read and enjoyed enough to want a copy of my own, with exceptions being sequels and authors I know I like. (I also usually buy used, when I do.) Depending where you are, you probably have a few (legal) ways to do it this way, too.

If you want to read something specific:

• Libraries. If you’re interested in a new release or very popular work, you might have to wait a while for your turn, but otherwise, it should be relatively easy to get a lot of things, either in person, through library apps, or through interlibrary loans.
• Kindle Unlimited. I don’t personally have experience with this one, as I’m not a big Amazon fan, but seems like a good way to stretch your book allowance/limit regret at picking a dud.

If you just want to try a variety of things, risk-free, to see what you might like:

• Little free libraries. Heavily dependent on whatever others donate, but if you’re lucky enough to have one near you, you might find something worth trying.
• Public domain. Obviously, limited to very old stuff, but maybe you’ll find something interesting.
• Assuming you’re reading fiction, some publishers, fiction magazines, and authors offer free things (full e-books, excerpts, short fiction, etc) on their sites. Short stories can be a great way to get a feel for many authors quickly.

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As to your other question: I find paperbacks way more comfortable to hold one-handed; no need to choose between eating and reading! They’re also usually smaller and lighter than hardcovers, so you can 1) fit more in less space, and 2) carry more at once when you move or rearrange.

Finished To Catch a Thief by David Dodge. Enjoyable suspense mystery, but definitely of its time (casual Roma racist stereotypes, side couple with an age gap we might side-eye today). Definitely a more methodical, serious story than the movie, which I watched after.

Bingo squares: Older than You (1952), What’s Yours Is Mine, Eazy Breazy Read-zie, Now a Major Motion Picture, (alt) A Change in Perspective

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I tried reading The Gathering by C.J. Tudor, a horror police procedural in a world where vampires publicly exist, because I like horror and police procedurals, but… all I did was remind myself that vampires just really aren’t my thing most of the time. The writing was compelling, so I might go back to it at some point, or try something else by that author.

Started The House on the Borderland by William Hope Hodgson.

Did a quick search, looks like ExeKiller, which isn’t out yet. Hope you find something good to play in the meantime!

And Saryn Prime.

Finished Relic by Douglas Preston & Lincoln Child last night. One of the authors worked in the real-life counterpart of the book’s museum setting for a few years, and it shows: there was lots of interesting detail about the parts the public doesn’t get to see. In general, I thought this was a fun enough popcorn read, although the first 60% seemed a little slow for something billed as a mystery horror thriller. Not sure I want to read any of the sequels, but I’ll probably check out the movie to see how good an adaptation it is.

Bingo squares: It Takes Two; Disability Representation; Eazy, Breazy, Read-zie; Now a Major Motion Picture; Mashup (debatable); Institutional HM; (alt) A Change in Perspective

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I’m planning to start To Catch a Thief by David Dodge next.

My favorite tank! I never use her 1 or 4, though, and should probably subsume something over one of them. Aegis Storm is ok as a panic CC when playing in a group, but not being able to use my loadout at the same time is so off-putting. As for Balefire, I’ve never found it to be better than my regular weapons, and I don’t find it fun to use.

Coincidentally, I just saw a new releases list from February that had the sequel on it: it’s called Red Side Story.

Not a weapon, but a type: I love blade and whips. They’re cool-looking, and the stance feels good.

Currently about 60 pages into Relic by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child. It’s alright so far, but I’m not super invested.

I also read Strange Dogs by James SA Corey, which I’d been putting off. Unlike some of the other Expanse novellas, the show followed this one pretty closely (from my memory of it, anyway). Luckily, it was short, and I can move on to Auberon without feeling guilty I’d skipped something.

I’ll second all of these, especially the lack of scrollbar and “expand text post in feed” button, and the hidden like/dislike buttons. The like/dislike vs upvote/downvote thing is tricky; I don’t have a good solution for it, but maybe different icons that don’t read as up/down would work.

Also, from a quick poke at things:

• There doesn’t seem to be a way to switch the “For You” feed away from card view. I think it’s fine if you want to make it a separate view setting from the main page, but I’d like to be able to change it to my view of choice.
• I’d like to see the post/comment body text tweaked for better readability: higher contrast against the background, a touch more space between lines, and a lighter weight (regular or medium) would all make reading long posts more pleasant, imo.
• In compact view, if I expand the attached image, there doesn’t seem to be a way to shrink it back down, as clicking again opens the post.
• When viewing a post, there’s a community sidebar on the right with all the rules and such, but that info is missing from the actual community detail page.
• The community sidebar on the post page scrolls separately from the rest of the post, which is weird to me on desktop. Giving it an “expand” button might be a good compromise, so you don’t have the weird case of short post/long sidebar unless the user explicitly asks for it.
• Navigating front page > post page > community detail page, and then hitting back on the browser twice returns me to what the nav bar tells me is the front page, but only that one community’s posts are shown. Refreshing or clicking “front page” fixes this, but it’s a little confusing the first time.
• Navigating front page > community detail page doesn’t trigger a… page load, I guess? My browser (firefox) doesn’t recognize the community detail page as a separate page, so I can’t hit back to go back to the main feed. Instead, I have to either refresh or click “front page”.

Overall, though, this is super impressive!

@Dresden I haven’t decided where I’m putting any of the books I’ve read for bingo yet, either.

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Finished Crazy Rich Asians over the weekend. I was expecting an Asian drama in book form, and that’s pretty much exactly what it is, complete with a number of common tropes. The characters have a bit more depth than your standard drama fluff, however, and the amount of discussion on Singaporean high society and culture elevates it further. On the negative side (for me), the narration–like many of the characters–gets very caught up in luxury brands, which I found kind of dry and unnecessary; I guess it might enhance the experience if you’re familiar with the names, but most of them went over my head. Additionally, the first third introduces a confusing number of characters. Thankfully, it gets easier later on, but at first, it’s hard to tell who’s important enough to keep track of (especially given the extensive family tree provided at the start).

Overall, this was a quick, fun read, and I liked it enough to add the next book in the series to my TBR.

(Bingo squares: Family Drama hard mode; Eazy, Breazy, Read-zie; maybe Stranger in a Strange Land hard mode; Debut Work; (alt) A Change in Perspective.)

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Still trying to decide what to read next.

I’m gonna post thoughts on Crazy Rich Asians in the new thread, but I enjoyed it well enough.

Re: The Butcher of the Forest: I wouldn’t say the author’s sadistic with their characters, no. From my (potentially desensitized) perspective, I’d say the horror is actually pretty mild, to be honest. The MC goes through a reasonable amount of trauma as she deals with the eldritch creatures (fae?) she encounters; my content warning… er… warning was mainly to do with a part of her past that she briefly recounts toward the end. It’s only about 100 pages, so not a big investment if you try it and find it not to your taste.

I was computerless for the better part of a week, so had lots of time to read! Currently 75% of the way through Crazy Rich Asians by Kevin Kwan.

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Finished The Last Gifts of the Universe by Rory August. Enjoyed this more than I’d expected: the first half led me to believe it was going to be breezy fluff the whole way through, but it actually turns fairly poignant in the second half, exploring the losses experienced by different characters. It’s a little hamfisted in places (evil corporation is evil!), and a little YA in tone, but still very worth a read, imo. (Counts for Among the Stars HM, Minority Author, LGBTQIA+ Lead, Family Drama, Debut Work.)

Read The Butcher of the Forest by Premee Mohamed, which scratched an itch I had for dark fantasy. Really enjoyed it; reminded me a little of both Annihilation and Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. My only real gripe is the last couple of pages feeling almost like sequel-bait, rather than letting the ending settle. This does have some horror elements, so do please check content warnings if it sounds good. (Counts for New Release, Minority Author, Mashup, It’s About Time, (alt) A Change in Perspective.)

It ended up being Miyazaki’s son’s first movie, and is a mashup of the entire series and some other stuff. Famous for this tidbit (quoted from Wiki):

During a private screening prior to the film’s release, Gorō’s father, Hayao, was asked what he thought of the film. He said, “I was looking at my kid. He’s not an adult yet. That is all.”

Le Guin was also not a fan, so…