After I made my first pass through my team’s initial 30-book allotment for SPSFC, Harvest was probably the book that I was most excited to get back to. Olga Werby’s entry promised a well thought-out first contact plot with an academic lead, both of which fit firmly within my wheelhouse. So how did it go? … Continue reading Sci-fi Novel Review: Harvest by Olga Werby
When I was making my first pass through my SPSFC team’s first-round allotment, Jeannette Bedard’s Day 115 on an Alien World immediately stood out. With this book being a competition entry, I had no background and didn’t even realize it was a sci-fi mystery novel. So when bodies dropped in the first chapter, it got… Continue reading Sci-fi Novel Review: Day 115 on an Alien World by Jeannette Bedard
Drained is another entry in the first annual Self-Published Science Fiction Competition. It produced some division in the extended preview that we used as a first cut, but I found the writing to be smooth and the early tension to be well-built, and I was intrigued to see whether Marc Daniel Acriche’s debut would build… Continue reading Sci-fi Novel Review: Drained by Marc Daniel Acriche
After my SPSFC judging team made our first pass through the 30 books in our first-round allotment, there were a few books that hadn’t really grabbed me but that I was willing to read further to give them more opportunity. And there were a few books that I was excited to get back to. Deston… Continue reading Sci-fi Novel Review: Dusk Mountain Blues by Deston J. Munden
The Solid-State Shuffle is another entry in my team’s first round batch of Self-Published Science Fiction Competition (SPSFC) novels. After reading extended previews of each book, we picked ten quarterfinalists to read to completion in search of the three semifinalists that we would pass to the other teams. I had mixed feelings about my introduction,… Continue reading Sci-fi Novel Review: The Solid-State Shuffle by Jeffrey A. Ballard
Peter Hartog’s Bloodlines is the second novel I read in full as part of the Self-Published Science Fiction Competition, where my team sampled 10-20% of the 30 books assigned to us and then voted on ten to read to completion. But, unlike in my previous SPSFC review, I was a no vote on Bloodlines, putting… Continue reading Sci-fi/Fantasy Novel Review: Bloodlines by Peter Hartog
Kate Sheeran Swed’s Bypass the Stars holds the distinction as the first book I read in full in my capacity as SPSFC judge. It was one of 30 books randomly assigned to my team, and we collectively voted it as one of ten to continue past the first 20%, so reading this book was decided… Continue reading Sci-fi Novel Review: Bypass the Stars by Kate Sheeran Swed
This will be my second year nominating and voting for the Hugo Awards, and while I have a ton of reading to get to in the couple of months before nominations are due, I thought it was a good time to go ahead and share the works on my radar for potential nomination. This can… Continue reading Way Too Early 2022 Hugo Nomination Draft
I hit another personal record this year, although my first year of keeping a robust reading spreadsheet showed me that some of my goals were ill-formed. After reading 70 books last year, my spreadsheet shows 86 novels and novellas attempted this year and 80 finished, totaling a little under 32,000 pages read (average novel/novella page… Continue reading Reading Goals: 2021 in Review, 2022 in Preview
