I’ve been reading a bunch of different things at once lately – a couple of print books, some ebooks, a short story online, an analysis of another story. It may be I have a short attention span, but I prefer to think of it as the life of a parent with a full-time job.

Anyway, this is what’s on my bookshelf right now:

“Losing Heart Among the Tall” by A.M. Dellamonica – a new story set in the world of Stormwrack. Magical. Here’s the blurb:

When the crew of the Nightjar find a merman of the fleet wounded and stranded in the ocean, Gale’s sister, Beatrice, is forced to take a back seat while Gale and Parrish work to find out who would assault a member of the nation of Tallon’s intelligence service. They soon discover a plot that could shake the foundations of the fleet and Beatrice might be the key to preventing a catastrophic disaster.

Dellamonica has more tales more in this universe if you like this story.

Resistance is Futile: Peter Watts’s “The Things” – Tor

Peter Watts is one of my favourite writers, and his story “The Things” is one of my favourite stories – and fucking difficult in a way his works are always challenging. So I am pretty much the target audience for this Tor analysis of the story.

In Lovecraft—and in Carpenter—difference equals horror. For Watts, that works both ways. The singular Thing is shocked and frightened by our individual isolation, our inability to change, our inevitable mortality. Our brains are sapient tumors, our bodies haunted by invisible ghosts. We’re like nothing it’s ever encountered before, though its instinct in the face of that strangeness suggests we might have something in common after all.

For the human readers, the horror of Carpenter’s original shapeshifting identity thief is amped up to a universe in which our individuality is the aberration. We’re a fragile fluke amid worlds of communal entities engaged in an ecstasy of mutual assimilation. Resistance is futile—we survive only as long as we’re not noticed.

Rumi and the Red Handbag by Shawna Lemay

I never thought I’d be interested in the lives of a couple of women working in a second-hand clothing shop, but here I am, lingering on every beautiful sentence and thought. I’m not alone in loving this book.

See also Lemay’s wonderfully calming and meditative blog Transactions with Beauty.

Spellsinger by Sebastien De Castell

You already know I love Sebastien De Castell’s Greatcoats series. Now he’s got a new bunch of books for me to fawn over – the Spellsinger books, about a magical society where everyone is a gifted mage… except for the hero of the story. Sounds like my life, which may explain why I’m enjoying it so much.

All right, enough blogging – back to reading.