The story was of a type that I like - an odyssey across expanses in the search for someone or something - and had the excellent, odd details that build a fantasy world for me. I liked the main character, an older and wiser Vellitt who thought she had settled down. I liked the setting, a fantasy land with nuance and mystery and cheery little flowers ( Read more... )

The progress report ( Read more... )

Ok, yeah, I don't know where to start with this one, so I'm just going to muddle through and see where I come out. ( Read more... )

I admit that I'm not well-read in graphic novels, but I've touched a decent portion of Neil Gaiman's work, so I know how a good graphic novel can look. (Monstress is not a Gaiman work.) This story read and appeared like something out of Books of Magic but the story was much easier to follow. It was Gaiman-esque - or perhaps troperific - in the over ( Read more... )

Pretty good. There are some odd choices in characterization, but that might just be because I'm dropping in well after the plot was established. And my little geeky heart adores that Esperanto is used as the "foreign" language in the story ( Read more... )

Pink and blue and weird all over.

I'm not a visual learner, and I am more distracted than informed by images much of the time. For this reason, I read a lot of comics but not a lot of graphic novels. So a simple art style with distinct features and forms is a good way to go for me. As such, the drawing in Paper Girls gets a strong nod of approval ( Read more... )

Yesterday evening, I spent time during a crashing thunderstorm reading the rest of The Ballad of Black Tom. It was a horror story that crept up on me slowly, gently, luring me with a vivid juxtaposition of the rich and gritty Harlem with fantastical otherworld dimensions. The end was shocking, lurching, abrupt ( Read more... )

Ok, with reading "The Jewel and Her Lapidary" yesterday over lunch, I've read all of the Hugo short stories and novelettes. And I liked many of them. The novellas are the next set to conquer over lunchtime at work, at allergy shots, etc.

For long-form fiction, I tried to start Three Parts Dead last night (nominated for Best Series), got exactly ( Read more... )

Alright, all you indoor sports fans, get your Hugos on! The Hugo packet has been released, and I'm now in the progress of downloading huge zip files onto my laptop so that I can unzip the packets and send the individual files where they need to go to live ( Read more... )

"City Born Great" by N. K. Jemisin (Hugo nominated for Short Story ( Read more... )