Mark Schiffer

For me, line by line this was perfection. I went into New Sun with a lot of trepidation about it being super bleak and impenetrable only to find a shockingly enjoyable and warm read. It just really hit right.
On to the next one!

I first must thank my partner for buying me this book for the holidays. I'd barely heard of it, but it looked very much my style.

I've, um, read a couple of bricks in my time, and few of them have read as smoothly and funly as XX. Any fan of golden age sci fi will love this one. I'm honestly surprised I'm not seeing more people talk about it.

Not all of the stories landed, but the ones that did were among the best and queerest pieces of recent speculative fiction I've read!

For some reason I really needed this one. Great spare Americana art.

For some reason I absolutely loved this one. New setting, new characters, perfectly introduced. Human drama felt so true. I'd reread it in a heartbeat.

Om nom nom...can't...stop

Really, really great. The books few problematic beats were overshadowed by immaculate character work and a perfectly paced narrative. Just gorgeously written. Now, on to Memory!

Easily the best Alien comic I've read.

So good, as always.

Fun, mellow cosmic horror!

Solidly enjoyable, with a killer first act (makes sense, as it was published separately as a novella). Kind of lost me with some of the twists as it went on but still a great time. Also had the best villains out of the Vorkosigan books I've read so far.

A perfect slice of mystery and morality.

God, the covers for these books are awful. Although I found some of the plotting a bit needlessly convoluted, the character work and thematic development really sang. The audiobooks for the series have also made reading them a joy.

400 pages blazed by. I'm obsessed, and I've barely met Miles.

Such a pleasure.

I needed something to make me smile. This more than did the job. I definitely will be reading more Bujold.

It all falls down. Sometimes exhausting and maudlin, sometimes gorgeous and powerful. Left me feeling AWFUL, but undeniably effective stylistically and thematically.

Really gorgeous and queer space heist. Super aching and sad, I kind of got a bit lost towards the end but I could totally imagine it being 5 stars on a reread.

Read the Clarke and it blew my mind.

I needed this one today.

A book about whose quality I continually re-evaluated during its duration, until the end when I realized that it's a stone cold classic of the genre.

For awhile I was really engaged with this one, but by the end I was so at odds with its hyper cynical view of the world that it left the sourest possible taste in my mouth.

Grimy, greasy 80s-style New York housing horror. Atwood kills this one, definitely worth a look!

Man, Cherryh loves a found family. I'm not mad at it, the power of human connection as a motif is really powerful in her work. Super claustrophobic, and nice to see more of the dreaded Mallory. I might have to take a bit of a break from Cherryh so I don't burn out on her, this is the fifth book in the past two months I've read by her.

Small, creepy mass murder mystery. My first Ballard, I should read more.