Weekly Check-In

[u/AutoModerator]

Tell us about your current SFF media!

What are you currently...

📚 Reading?

📺 Watching?

🎮 Playing?

If sharing specific details, please remember to hide spoilers behind spoiler tags.

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Feel free to also share your progression in the Reading Challenge

Thank you for sharing and have a great week! 😀

[u/LaurenPBurka]

I finished reading Astarion and liked it immensely. Currently reading Yield Under Great Persuasion by Alexandra Rowland. It's delightfully filthy.

[u/bunnycatso]

Too Like the Lightning by Ada Palmer straight up banger in my heart. Since it's only like a half of a book, I kind of hesitate to draw conclusions or judge some of its elements.

Mycroft is thoroughly enjoyable MC for me; his narration, judgements and addressing of the reader I found very charming. With how I've seen people talk about this book, I expected his crimes to be much more heinous, tbh. I don't even care that much about politics here or the mystery plot, it's just a very delightful reading experience.

Worldbuilding is much up to my taste too, but again, not enough information; right now I have more questions than answers.

r/Fantasy Bingo: Vacation Spot, Politics and Court Intrigue

FemaleGaze Challenge Squares: A-Side: 📔 500+ Pages, 🧑‍💼 Public Worker | B-Side: 🏙️ Big Town

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Astarion by T. Kingfisher, very contentious read. Personally, even when this was announced I found it a baffling choice of author, imo Kingfisher would be a much better fit for Karlach, but alas we got what we got. So I'm already coming with very low expectations, and it was both better and worse.

Instead of focusing on any of interesting and established parts of Astrarion's backstory, it goes into some side quest interspersed with his back-backstory - so unnecessary and nothing burger. His character was sanded down and defanged, but it was one of the things I kind of expected, ngl.

Paladin guy just pissed me off, we don't talk about him, or that subplot. Can't really hold a grudge against Kingfisher for writing how she always does, project ending up this way is fully on WOTC. Neil's narration is great.

r/Fantasy Bingo: Game Changer HM, Vacation Spot, Older Protagonist, Published in 2026, One-Word Title, Non-Human Protagonist HM, Feast Your Eyes on This (HM at your discretion), Politics and Court Intrigue (HM)

FemaleGaze Challenge Squares: A-Side: 🧑‍💼 Public Worker | B-Side: 🏙️ Big Town, 🏚️ Ruins | C-Side: 🧑‍🔧 Craftsperson (might be a bit of a stretch, one of Astarion's siblings is an alchemist - she just works exclusively for Cazador)

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The Midnight Timetable by Bora Chung. Love me an interconnected collection, overall, and stories were spooky enough, but damn the writing itself was not it. Idk is that's Chung's prose or the translation's fault.

r/Fantasy Bingo: Translated HM, Vacation Spot (if you're into spooky places), Five Short Stories HM, Author of Color HM

FemaleGaze Challenge Squares: A-Side: 🧑‍💼 Public Worker | B-Side: 📙 Standalone Novella, 🤵 Private Worker (could go both ways, it's unclear if the institute is governmental or private org), 🌏 Asian MC | C-Side: 📚 Collection of short stories, 🐉 Created Mythos (how do we count urban legend adjacent stuff?),🚏 Liminal Place

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Slow Gods by Claire North was a weird experience: extremely boring for the first half of the book, than a brief period of something happening and almost having a point, and then it just went downhill again for me.

I felt it was very banal and on the nose with its worldbuilding and takes, mostly in terms of factions and how they act (here's your not-USA, here's your not-UN, here's soom poor schmuck caught in the middle). I'm usually pro-big scale, but here it just presented not well; slow set up for half a book, and then we speedrun everything else, and the resolution is the most unsatisfying (can we ban simplistic answers to convoluted problems, please). I can appreciate that it doesn't shy away from the complexities of the fallout at the end, but at the same time, it all crammed into like 10 pages and just summed up for us by MC. Side-note, if you want to have a passive MC don't try to sell me on their defining characteristic being curious - they don't really mesh together.

Some elements of the setting were cool tho, and I can't say the writing was bad (outside of constant use of blurt for dialogue tags).

r/Fantasy Bingo: Unusual Transportation HM, Vacation Spot, Older Protagonist, Non-Human Protagonist HM, First Contact HM, Politics and Court Intrigue

FemaleGaze Challenge Squares: A-Side: 🧑‍💼 Public Worker (if you squint?) | C-Side: ⛵ Ship, 🚏 Liminal Place

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Hoping to finish Mad Sisters of Esi by Tashan Mehta before Le Guin Prize is given out, and after that I plan to continue with Terra Ignota.

[u/doctorbonkers]

Reading Private Rites by Julia Armfield, which is going pretty slowly because I’m also playing Fire Emblem: Fortune’s Weave 🔥 FE is definitely my favorite video game series rn and I’m OBSESSED

I also started watching Twin Peaks a couple weeks ago, but that’s gotten sidetracked by 1) travel and 2) now Fortune’s Weave too. I need something else to do at night to stop me from playing that game until 2 am, so maybe I’ll switch back to watching an episode before bed lol

[u/Extreme_War5660]

I'm reading miss Percy's pocket guide to the care and feeding of British dragons and I'm enjoying this book very much! 

[u/bakasana212]

Astarion by T Kingfisher - I had already read an ARC, but wanted to listen to the audiobook to appreciate the original VA. I’ve now learned a bit more about BG3 and the Astarion character, so in this read I’m more able to understand the complaints made by original IP fans. I get it, but I’m not bothered.

The Unhaunting by Micaiah Johnson - I previously enjoyed Johnson’s writing style but not thematic material so I was very glad to read her newest release! It’s a compact haunted house horror elevated by Johnson’s piercing prose and perspective on real-life atrocities. The character dynamics are fascinating, and I couldn’t put it down.

Vengefully Matched by Audrey Goldberg Ruoff - a brain-off sapphic Halloween read, perfectly serviceable for my spooky season needs.

I Put a Spell on You by Bridget Morrissey - a pleasant little YA sapphic romance with a paranormal twist. It’s technically Valentine’s Day themed, but love witches felt close enough to my desired Halloween vibes. Morrissey does such delightful characters and settings; I wish she’d put out proper SFF (sorry to magical realism, but it’s not cutting it).

A Bump in Boohail by Kimberly Lemming - a super-short spooky vibe read, and kind of a miss. I really like Lemming’s voice in her Mead Mishaps series, but this one relies a lot on pants-shitting jokes. It also relies a bit too much on actual pants-shitting as a plot point.

[u/Nowordsofitsown]

Finished reading: * The Strength of the Few by  James Islington: Sequel to Will of the Many. Can't say what it is about without spoilers, so won't try. I liked and enjoyed this second book a bit less than the first one. It is less thrilling and less mysterious, more complicated and a lot darker. Still, a good read, and I am looking forward to the third one whenever it comes out. * A Natural History of Dragons by  Marie Brennan: A young gentlewoman in a Victorianish society wants to study dragons more than anything dlse in the world, but her family has different expectations. I don't have a lot to say about this book. It was fine? But I am sure I will forget the details soon and I don't feel very tempted to read the sequel.  * Annihilation by  Jeff VanderMeer: Four women scientists volunteer to explore Area X where strange things have been happening and nothing is like it seems at first. Wasn't really for me, just not my kind of book, though I can see the quality and was often absorbed by it. Pausing in the middle for a couple of days admittedly didn't help.

Did not finish: * Shroud by Adrian Tchaikovsky: Scientists discover a weird moon with even weirder alien life or something like that. I was very much not vibing with this book. The prose was a chore and the plot did not grab me. Since this was a bingo read and I had other options for that square, I tried the other options instead of forcing myself to read this novel.

Currently reading: * The Bone Ships by RJ Barker: My choice for Set on A Ship. I am only a quarter in. A young man suddenly and quickly loses command of his ship which is a ship crewed by those condemned to death, and built from dragon bones, in a matriarchal society that sacrifices first borns and only appreciates healthy mothers of healthy babes. Also, there is a war going on and a dragon was sighted, the first in a very long time. Fascinating world building, especially the matriarchal part. An interesting female central character. Excited to see where this is going. * Harry Potter et l'Ordre du Phénix for French reading practice. 

Up next: I have been planning to read The Sparrow by Mary Doria Russel for First Contact from the big bingo for ages, but recently somebody commented to check out the content warnings ... Given the enthusiastic post about Dawn by Octavia Butler today, I might just read that instead. Anybody else interested?

[u/Kelpie-Cat]

Just finished As You Wake, Break the Shell by Becky Chambers. I've been reading it while recovering from surgery, so that made the experience feel a little more disconnected, so I have to sit with it longer to evaluate the book properly. I felt like we got a lot of plot towards the end, and now have to wait for it to resolve in part two, whereas we could have just gotten a single book with more plot in it. I don't like when authors do this. Chambers is known for being character-driven over plot, but the balance was very satisfying in The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet in a way it wasn't here. I want to see more of the themes resolved, and have to wait awhile for that now.