Wednesday had an e-reader crisis*
What I read
The House of Binding Thorns - even though I was not entirely sure I was in the mood for a fantasy set in a crapsack world in which nobody is a very nice character and the best outcome is only ever a lesser evil, this was so well-written that I didn't actually put it down and pick up something fluffy.
Jeannelle M. Ferreira, The Covert Captain: Or, A Marriage of Equals (2018): f/f historical romance, but in spite of the Regency setting, rather grittier than that might imply. (As in, the 'Polly Oliver' character has PTSD from the Peninsular Campaign, among other things.) I found there was something a bit distanced about the narrative style: interesting idea, no gross anachronisms, well-done but somehow I didn't entirely warm up to it.
D. B. Borton, Smoke (2017). Borton was a mystery writer who was fairly prolific around the 90s, and had a series with a middleaged protag that was not, as I recollect, All About The Cozy. There appear to have been two later entries in the series which are only available as very expensive dead-tree editions, chiz. This was a non-series book, except it felt like it was part of a series? - protag is an (elderly but before an accident before the beginning, fit and hale) operative for one of those somewhat mysterious morally ambiguous security firms that crop up in crime/thriller/caper fiction. I felt this was just a bit too throwing too much in: art theft, art forgery, murder, different groups with an interest in the game, though at least it didn't do the 'the fake/ghastly weekend painter art is actually painted over the priceless work of art' which I was expecting. I might go back to the series (think I still have the old paperbacks on the shelf somewhere) and see if it holds up.
I realise that last week I forgot to mention the reread of Margaret Drabble, The Dark Flood Rises.
On the go
Still What Are We Doing Here?.
Up Next
Elizabeth Bear, Stone Mad (2018), which I would probably have already started, had *e-reader not been doing something weird and opening unread books at a blank page and claiming that they were 99% finished and if I tried to navigate to the start going back to the home screen. I was a bit worried that this would mean, if not an entirely new one, a major factory reset. In fact switching it off and switching it on again appears to have sorted the problem (I hope).
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On the dread decline of the market for litfic: lately came across this, which suggests that it is not a new phenomenon, or at least, the Rot Set In much earlier, but was concealed by the arcane practices of publishing and bookselling. This entry was originally posted at https://oursin.dreamwidth.org/2741699.html. Please comment there using OpenID. View
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