Hello, my friends,
If you’re a Monday-Friday person, happy weekend! I am not—I work on Saturdays—but as my Saturday shift is a short one, it never feels quite like a regular workday, so I consider Friday the end of the week anyway. As always, brains are weird?
Anyway, here’s what I’m leaning towards reading this weekend.
A Master of Djinn, by P. Djèlí Clark
Amazon | Bookshop
This is the only one of Clark’s books I haven’t read yet, and I loved all the others, so I’m inclined to start this one IMMEDIATELY, before I even go into work this morning? It’s a murder mystery set in the same steampunk version of 1912 Cairo as The Haunting of Tram Car 015—and truly, I’ve loved all of his books, but of the three, this is the one that I always give a little pat whenever I walk by. What can I say, I love Magical Bureaucracy?
Notorious Sorcerer, by Davinia Evans
Amazon | Bookshop
Picked this one up almost entirely because of the rad cover, which I maybe never would have seen if not for this tweet. But according to the publisher copy it involves alchemy and social climbing and HARPIES, and it’s blurbed by the author of the two fantasies that I just blew through this week, so it looks to be a good fit?
Gideon the Ninth, by Tamsyn Muir
Amazon | Bookshop
One of the blurbs simply says: “Lesbian necromancers explore a haunted gothic palace in space!” And at the moment, I guess that’s all I need to hear???
A random tweet that made me laugh
A few Kindle SF/F deals
Black Stars: Six futuristic shorts by Black authors including Nnedi Okorafor, Nisi Shawl, and Victor LaValle. The cover art on these RULES.
Trespass: Six nature-themed sf/f shorts by authors including Silvia Moreno-Garcia, Stephen Graham Jones, and Carmen Maria Machado. Great cover art here as well, what can I say, I’m easily swayed by pretty pictures?
Jade City, by Fonda Lee: Blurb from Ken Liu: “An epic drama reminiscent of the best classic Hong Kong gangster films but set in a fantasy metropolis so gritty and well-imagined that you'll forget you're reading a book.” Which, like, what’s not to love about that?? I bought this four years ago because it sounds rad, and I’ve been meaning to get around to it since. Maybe if I include it here that’ll remind me to bump it up the pile?
As always, what I plan to read and what I actually read rarely line up, but we’ll see what happens! What do you have on deck?
Talk to you next week,
Leila
Gideon the Ninth is weird and strange and challenging and completely brilliant. Can't wait to hear what you think!
The cover of Notorious Sorcerer is GORGEOUS. (Again with the covers, Tanita.) I look forward to eventually getting there, if you don't get there first. I mean "malevolent harpies" in the description just made me snicker.