David Gillon

The day after I got to my mother's my laptop started sending out distress signals about imminent hard-drive failure, so all the hobby projects I'd planned for filling in time while away went out of the window. (I snagged a back-up copy of all of my personal files before shutting it down and leaving it that way, I'm planning to see if my neighbour is interested in cloning the hard-drive and replacing it for me - I'd rather pay him than some stranger - but he's on holiday right now).

Which means I just spent four weeks without a laptop or other computer, which is unprecedented.

Which means I did a lot of reading, but mostly of stuff that was already on my Kindle.

Seanan McGuire books:

Toby Daye series 1-10, plus all the short stories from the web site

Incryptid series 1-4, plus all the short stories from the web site.

Indexing series 1 and 2

Velveteen series 1 and 3 (book 2 remains annoyingly out of print on Kindle)

I like them all, a lot, but I think my preferences run Toby-Indexing-Velveteen-Incryptid.

Dusk or Dark or Dawn or Day : Short standalone novel, which I recall reading in one sitting first time through and two this time, I really, really like this, but the ending doesn't quite work for me even if it is arguably the protagonist getting to where she's meant to be.

Any Way The Wind Blows: Standalone short story, apparently a tribute to Tor's old offices. Amusing, but slight.

By People Who Aren't Seanan McGuire

Goblin Fruit, Magicians Horde : Celia Lake

I'm not the target audience for these, not being a romance fan, but curiousity from all the stuff Jennett writes about writing them led me to read Outcrossing a few months ago and I picked up these two when I was able to get online at my sister's. The series elevator pitch would be something like romances in an alternative post-Great War Britain with a cosy magical mystery being the lever to force two apparently mismatched and slightly damaged people together.

Goblin Fruit has series focal character Carillon and slightly impoverished gentlewoman Lizzie Penhallow being set at the same problem - a mysterious and addictive new drink  - from different directions and literally falling for over each other mid-investigation. It's pretty good for filling in a lot of the background about the magical sub-culture in the UK and how it functions that were only hinted at in Outcrossing.

Magician's Horde has bookseller/rearcher Pross Gates, a secondary character in Outcrossing, heading to London to ask for help from the 'Research Society' into a possible historical treasure she's been hired to help track down. The society seems to have gone notably downhill since her deceased husband was a Fellow, but it does assign her its apparently least favoured researcher, the (entirely justifiably) prickly Anglo-Egyptian Isis Ward (that's a male Isis, not female). Shenanigans ensue. I didn't feel this was entirely successful in establishing its bad guys' motivations, but they're really not the point here, and the handling of Pross's almost-a-teen daughter Cammie and Isis's mid-teen sister Hypatia's reactions to their elders getting it on together more than made up for it. This is also the first time we've had a reasonably upclose view of Hogwarts Schola, the wizarding school most of the characters attended.

Deadly Vows, Keri Arthur

Lizzie Grace has been hiding from her father and her husband since she was 18 and the day when her friend and familiar Belle rescued her from rape at her new husband's hands (it wasn't just an arranged marriage, it was a forced marriage) and emasculated him in the progress.

But now defending the magical wellspring on the Faelan Werewolf Reservation has blown Lizzie's cover and daddy and hubby are coming for the inevitable showdown. On top of which there's a wierd and unidentified supernatural predator killing newly weds (though not so wierd that I didn't immediately identify it from the description - and ironically ran into another one in the Incryptid stuff a week later).

My prime criticism of these is still that it's a very white version of Australia, even with non-white characters like Belle. Six books in and I don't think we've had a single aboriginal character yet. The murder monster was probably slightly superfluous this time around given it's very obviously going to be shunted off-stage at the earliest opportunity in order to clear the decks for the confrontation with daddy dearest, which I felt was itself undermined by turning hubby-dearest into a slavering rage-monster. There's also a deal-with-the-devil decision that's probably going to be terminal for a series regular at some point in the future.

Currently Reading

The Hound and Hob Pub, Seana Kelly

I liked the Paris segment, unfortunately they've now arrived in the UK and while it's mostly minor stuff - the barman yelling 'last call' instead of 'last orders' - the author appears to believe there are wolves on the Yorkshire moors. Plus it's doing the Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves thing with UK geography, apparently Whitby Abbey is close enough to Rievaulx Abbey you can jog over in time to intervene when someone's being chased by wolves (actual distance 30-odd miles).

Spell Hound, Lindsay Buroker (A Witch in Wolf Wood Book 2)

I was a bit equivocal about continuing the series after reading book 1, but the offer of the whole five book series for £0.79 persuaded me. Newbie witch Morgen remains clueless, brooding werewolf Amar remains darkly broody, every other male character is both a werewolf and a pig and every other female character is a witch out to exploit Morgen, the werewolves, or, mostly, both.

Samples Sampled

Winter's Gifts, Ben Aaronovitch

The new Rivers of London novella, though in this case it's more snowy Great Lakes of America, featuring Special Agent Kimberly Reynolds responding to a distress call from a retired FBI agent for "whoever's in charge of the basement nowadays".  Bonus points for the X-Files reference. I may well pick this up as soon as I've cleared the books I'm currently reading.

Dying With Her Cheer Pants On, Seanan McGuire.

Fix-up novel, imagine BtvS, but with Buffy replaced by the Fighting Pumpkins cheerleading squad. I do want to read this, but might wait and see if it pops up on offer.

Feed, Mira Grant (aka Seanan McGuire)

It's a couple of decades since the zombies rose and George and her brother Shaun are intent on succeeding as celebrity bloggers, whether as a serious reporter (Georgia) or by poking zombies with a hockey stick (Shaun). Being selected to report on the presidential campaign from the inside can only help. I've been meaning to try the series for years, but never really got around to it before now. I suspect the idea of influencing people by blogging/vlogging probably had slightly more impact when these first came out.