Red Mars by Kim Stanley Robinson (1993) Bantam Spectra

The first novel in an epic about the colonization of Mars.  The first hundred people to become Martians and their vision of a non-political, non-economics-based society.  Temper this with the reaction of an overpopulated Earth needing a place to bleed-off their starving masses and the natural tendency of people to not change.  Amazing advances in applied science to transform the face of Mars and the collision of competing forces drive an outcome that should be predictable.  The outcome is both natural and surprising.

Into the Riverlands by Nghi Vo (2021) Tor.com

An East Asian Canterbury Tale

Chih, cleric of Singing Hills and their birdlike companion, Almost Brilliant, go into the Riverlands, walking with other travelers, telling and listening to tales.  They have the fortune to travel with marshal arts masters, and the misfortune to need them.  Just when it seems their enemies are too many to overcome, and old man surprises everyone.

The Singing Hills Cycle is a joy to read, the stories within the story are wonderfully done, making for a quick and satisfying read.

The Cradle of Oshae by A.K. Hauser

An intriguing fantasy in a new world with great characters and cultures.  Where people who grew-up in different places travel far and find new magic in a changing world.

Watch the author's site for news about the release of this book: AKHauser.com

When Women Were Dragons by Kelly Barnhill (2022) Doubleday

Kelly Barnhill steps out of her typical genre for kids and writes a wonderful satire on our patriarchal societal restrictions from the 40's through today.  If a woman you know, dragoned (metamorphosed into a dragon) how would you handle it?  Could you pretend it didn't happen?  Would that change anything?  And what would you do when it reached a tipping point?  Ms. Barnhill ponders these questions and provides good answers too.

Footnote: Ms. Barnhill suffered a concussion (her third) and worries about writing again.  I say, don't worry it, let the idea and the words come.  Because when they do, you write them down beautifully.

Cress Watercress by Gregory Maguire, Illustrated by David Litchfield (2022) Candlewick Press

A beautiful book wherein the title character, Cress, and her family move one night from their warren after her father does not come home.  They move into the Broken Arms, where the landlord is an owl.  In addition to her brother, Kip, getting sick, and her mother weaving to make a living, Cress makes friends with squirrels, meets Tunk, a bear, a skunk who is glamorous, at least in her own mind, a chinchilla, a hen, and Nasty, another rabbit.  She gets chased by Reynard, a fox.  And worries about being eaten by the Final Drainpipe, a snake.  But the best advise in the book is for writers and is told by the hen who suggests that Cress make a story.

“I don’t know how to make a story,” said Cress.

“It’s like making an egg, I think?” said the hen.  “Just sit there until it comes out.”

Hell Bent by Leigh Bardugo (2023) Flatiron Books

Galaxy Stern returns in a story about the Lethe house at Yale.  This time she is going to try to get her mentor back from hell where he was trapped by his traitorous professor in charge of the house.  But she can’t do it by herself.  Her new Praetor and her sponsor don’t want her to mess with any more arcane attempts.  They want to count her Virgil as simply lost.  But Alex doesn’t know how to give up.

Ms. Bardugo weaves a tight tale of self-recrimination and magnificent effort that keeps the reader guessing all through the story.

Watercress by Andrea Wang, Illustrated by Jason Chin (2021) Neil Porter Books (Caldecott 2022)

A beautiful book that will tug at the heartstrings about tradition and loss.  Ms. Wang writes a tightly woven text that says so much in few words.  Mr. Chin’s art perfectly compliments the story.  No wonder it won the Caldecott and garnered a Newbery Honor.

When the Tiger Came Down the Mountain by Nghi Vo (2020) Tor.com

Our favored monk, Chih is back and recording more stories, this time without Almost Brilliant.  She finds herself stopped just short of her destination aboard a mammoth for the night by a set of Tiger sisters.  After a desperate run for shelter, Chih starts telling stories to the tigers, who keep telling her what is wrong with the stories and correcting them.  They promise to let the mammoth go if Chih will record the correct version of the stories, if they don’t eat her.

An engaging storytelling that keeps you turning the page.

The Empress of Salt and Fortune by Nghi Vo

A very satisfying book.  We get the tale through the careful listening of a monk who wishes to record the history of a dwelling at a magical lake.  Tales are told by a former palace servant.  The empress had been exiled once she bore the emperor an heir.  But she was from the north where they raise their girls to be fierce.

Raymie Nightingale by Kate DiCamillo (2016) Candlewick Press

The first of three books about a trio of fatherless girls in Florida.  Raymie concocts a way to get her father to come back home.  She meets Louisiana, who wants to rescue her cat, and Beverly who is fierce and unafraid of anything.  But nothing is as it seems, even with three girls who become friends.

Ducks by Kate Beaton (2022) Drawn & Quarterly

A graphic autobiography of the years when a college graduate, unable to find a job to pay off her student loans turned to the Oil Sands of Alberta to make money in clerical jobs.  It covers the horrors of abusive harassment and rape prevalent not only to the girls working there, but the First Nation women too.  Take a camp of 95% men, add a few young, naïve women and working organizations that turn their eyes away and this is the result.  I hope her book gets the attention of those who can make a difference.

Louisiana’s Way Home by Kate DiCamillo (2018) Candlewick Press

Part of a trio of books about girls without a father.  Ms. DiCamillo weaves a story about identity, loss, and the story of a life that isn't real. We listened to this on audio, the reader was exceptionally good with voices and attitude of each of the characters.  Raymie (from the first book) even has a small role.  It's worth the read or the listen.

The Poet by Michael Connelly (1996) Little Brown, & Co.

A new lead character appears in this novel, Jack McAvoy, a journalist in Denver.  His specialty, murder stories, becomes ironic when his twin brother, a homicide detective, kills himself.  Jack decides to write the story to cope with his grief.  Researching the issue of homicide cops committing suicide, he discovers a disturbing fact – those who had a seemingly unsolved case, all had something in common, a suicide note that simply quoted poems by Edgar Allen Poe.  Is this really the work of a suicide killer?  And can Jack expose the truth without becoming a victim himself?

Weights and Measures by Jodi Picoult (2011) in Stories, edited by Neil Gaiman and Al Sarrantonio, Harper Perennial

Miss Picoult’s poetic, ability to move the reader comes into full force here over the tragic loss of a seven-year-old daughter and the heart-rending attempt of parents trying to get past the grief.  And the extreme effects that can happen in the imagination come to life.

I read this out loud so Margaret could hear it.  Her response was that from now on, whenever someone says her stories are too sad, they should read this story.

The Knife by Richard Adams (2011) in Stories, edited by Neil Gaiman and Al Sarrantonio, Harper Perennial

Like Poe’s “Tell-Tale Heart”, this story is told from the point of view of a character who has done something criminal.  It traces the discovery of a murder weapon, and the bullying that pushes the narrator to the reprehensible act.  And the confession to a dear uncle who chooses to keep the secret.

The Last Deadloss Visions by Christopher Priest

This book length essay, available on multiple sites via an Internet search, is about the non-publication of The Last Dangerous Visions, vilifying Harlan Ellison as an Editor who started the project in the 1970s and never managed to get it published before he died in 2018.

His promotion of the anthology became a sad joke within the writing community, especially with writers not getting their manuscripts back when commitments from publishers failed, for whatever reason, to result in publication.  I think it sad that the publishers did not find alternative ways to produce the project, even if it meant producing multiple books for timeliness.  There could have been More Last Dangerous Visions, Last Dangerous Visions Again, etc. (just like the five volumes of the Hitchhiker Trilogy by Douglas Adams).

Personally, I am a huge fan of Ellison’s work.  I don’t include his incomplete projects in this opinion just like I don’t include any other writer/editor’s projects that have not come to fruition.  While I do know the frustration of waiting extraordinarily long times to hear back on whether or not a manuscript has been accepted, it’s simply part of a writer’s life.  For those writers who have been fortunate to hear quickly on their manuscripts, accepted or rejected, congratulations on your wonderful luck.

In July of 2022, Blackstone Publishing announced that Last Dangerous Visions will be released September 1, 2024.

Only time will tell if the ultimate anthology of science fiction will occur before the end of the Earth.

The Peripheral by William Gibson (2014) G.P. Putnam's Sons

A dystopian weave of not exactly time travel as murder mystery.  In which a gamer girl takes over for her marine veteran brother and witnesses a murder in the future.  Only it’s not her future since her act splits her continuum from the future she sees as a peripheral in a manufactured body.  The future continuum wants her to identify the murderer and not get killed by other people in her own continuum hired by someone else in the future.  The book is fascinating.  The series based on the characters is also visually fascinating, though the plot is vastly different.

"Now is the time for all good men [and women] to come to the aid of their country" -Charles E. Weller,  The Early History of the Typewriter, p. 21 (1918) - [words in brackets are mine.]

To paraphrase, now is the time to make sure you and your loved ones, your friends, your neighbors, are properly registered to vote so that by the time polls open for the 2024 contests, you are all ready and prepared to vote.

There are over 250,000,000 voting age adults in the United States.  I would like to see 75% of voters participate in elections so we can be assured that we heard from a true majority when selecting people to hold important public offices.

As we face efforts by political machines to limit supporters of their opponents, real and imagined, just to keep cronies in power, or to place radical members of their parties in positions for no other real reason than to upset the status quo (note candidates who run during each election on a platform of simply opposing whoever is in office).  Such inaction as a platform is of no real use to the public.  

Every U.S. citizen in each State over 18 years of age who is not otherwise restricted legally can vote.  In most cases, felons who are currently serving a sentence cannot vote.  To help those who have been convicted of a crime and do not know their voting rights, see: Guide to State Voting Rules that Apply After a Conviction).

Help your fellow citizens who have a hard time registering.  If you're not sure about the rules for registration, see: Voter Registration. It's the government site that has all the rules and links to the information you need.  You can even look up State and local Election office websites here: https://www.usa.gov/election-office.

Make sure you check the rules even if you've voted before.  You might need a new card, or a change of address, or need to know the exact rules for mail-in or absentee ballots.  Learn the early voting rules for your State and help your family and neighbors get out and vote.

A Gambling Man by David Baldacci (2021) Grand Central Publishing

The second book in the Archer series – in which our hero stops in Reno and saves an old gambler from a couple of toughs.  He also impresses a singer, Liberty Callahan, enough to make her want to go with him to California where she hopes to become a star.  When they come upon the old guy facing more toughs, Archer and Callahan save him again.  Archer agrees to buy his V12 Delahaye (a fabulous looking art deco style car) to help him pay off his debt.  Though it doesn’t really help the guy and the toughs follow Archer and the singer before they get discouraged.  Once in Bay City, California, Archer connects with a private investigator whose name was given to him in the first book.  Then we get into murder mystery.  And it is a classic.  Baldacci at his best.

A Man Called Otto (from A Man Called Ove by Fredrick Backman) Directed by Marc Forster, starring Tom Hanks, Mariana Treviño and Rachel Keller, 2DUX², Playtone, SF Productions (2023)

Having read the book and watched the original sub-titled Swedish movie, I went to the theater ready to be disappointed in another Anglicized European movie.  Was I ever wrong.

A better director, a better cast with a nuanced performance and this is as good as a remake can get.

Tom Hanks, as Otto, plays a perfect, curmudgeon whose efforts to join his late wife are frustrated at every turn.  Rachel Keller plays the beautiful, kind wife, Sonya, in flashbacks seen as Otto's memories flashing before his eyes.  Mariana Treviño plays the neighbor Marisol (played here as Mexican with degrees from Universidad de los Andes and the University of California - perhaps since this version of the movie places the scene in the U.S. instead of Sweden).  She is instrumental in changing Otto, bringing him back to life in small pushes.  And there is the most laid-back cat (played by Smeagol, an American Longhair). 

Fundamentally, the story hasn't changed that much from the original, which is good.  Though there were scenes I wish they'd kept, like those with Otto's father, and coverage of Otto's years before he met Sonya.

It could be a contender for Oscar considerations.