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After the travails of September, October has been a bit surreal: all work, my first trip to Dublin, home for a lesson in butchery (that’s not a metaphor), and a lot more work. I’m back in the US for a couple of weeks, learning that yes, Hallowe’en makes me really uncomfortable… and getting really excited for SciFi Month starting tomorrow!

Reading Round-up 

I’ve got back to my usual reading this month (yes, can you tell I got on to the SciFi train early? I have no regrets). While I struggled to settle with a few things (jetlag and migraine aren’t easy to please), it’s been a strong month overall. Reviews may be substituted by mostly vowels…

• The Hanging Tree – Ben Aaronovitch      – OOOOOH
• Shadowblack – Sebastien de Castell    
• The Collapsing Empire – John Scalzi     
• Nemesis Games – James S A Corey      
  • Read-along: Week 1 | Week 2 | Week 3 | Week 4 – AAAAAAAAH
• Tarnished City – Vic James     
• Revenger – Alastair Reynolds       – EEEEEE
• Artemis – Andy Weir [DNF]

Review Round-up

• Within the Sanctuary of Wings – Marie Brennan     
• Tremontaine Season 3: Ambition | The Siege of Riverside | The Bridge

Stacking the shelves

I’ve given up exercising self-restraint in favour of being wildly excited about books.

Conscious demographics

My annual challenge is to read diversely and to love every book. This year I’ve made things a bit more complicated with subsidiary challenges and more fun with the Game of Books.

• 27 male (42%) / 33 female (52%) / 2 trans, non-binary or genderfluid (3%) + 2 anthos
• 9 (14%) – by authors of colour / 35 (55%) prominently featuring POC
• 5 (8%) – by LGBTQIA authors  / 24 (38%) featuring LGBTQIA characters

Challenges

Challenges? Pffft. More like guidelines anyway

• 64 / 45 books or novellas (excl. Tremontaine)
• 9 / 10 books by authors of colour
• 5 / 10 non-SFF books of which 0 non-fiction
• 2 / 10 classic SFF books (6 incl. rereads)
• 18 / 30 – off the shelf (it doesn’t count if I bought them to read them straight away!)
• Game of Books score: 329 / 400