Reading through the winter storm

I was just out walking around the melting snow from our winter storm here in southeast Texas. It's been years since I've seen so much snow - even when visiting family up north. Family and friends who live in snow country have a hard time understanding how everything shuts down here with snow or ice storms. We don't have the infrastructure to deal with it, especially with the roads.

So with the Dr. Martin Luther King Holiday on Monday, I've been off work for five days. I spent some of that time getting my house as ready as I could (my pipes are pretty much mummified), and some of the time worrying. The last time we had a bad winter storm, in 2021, I lost power for four freezing days and nights. Thankfully, this time we had no issues with power in my area of the city.

I am still reading primarily fantasy and science fiction, though I have some interesting non-fiction books that will be due soon at the library. I did try one history of the Titanic disaster, a recommendation from Crimes and Survivors, but it was an indictment of Bruce Ismay, and I found that less than compelling.

Among the books I did finish:

Navigational Entanglements, Aliette de Bodard (library book). One of Tor's short books, a story of four young space navigators sent to represent their clans in the struggle to contain a deadly force threatening their systems (a Tangler). There are clashes between the clans - and so the women - tangled up in politics and trade. This is the first of Aliette de Bodard's books that I have read in print, and I enjoyed it very much. It led me to look for others of her work in print, because I've found ebooks of her stories hard to follow for some reason.

Falling Free, Lois McMaster Bujold (TBR, 2024). I recently re-read Diplomatic Immunity, where Miles and Ekaterin Vorkosigan are diverted from their delayed honeymoon to resolve a situation in Quaddie Space. I didn't like the book the first time I read it - I can't remember why now - and somehow I'm surprised by how good it is. "Quaddie space" is the homeworld for a gene-engineered people with four arms (and no legs) who live in free-fall environments. I was inspired this time to finally read their origin story, one of LM Bujold's earlier works. It's set 200 years before the Vorkosigan saga begins. It was interesting to read, if a little less polished than her later works.

The Goblin Emperor, Katherine Addison (re-read). This is one of my comfort reads, so I picked it up as an antidote to storm anxiety. I will also be re-reading the two novellas that follow one of the characters in his work as a Witness for the Dead, before a third one comes out later this year. There is also another short novella set in this world coming out later this month, and both will be on my "52 books for 2025" list.

Point of Sighs, Melissa Scott (re-read). I love this fantasy series set in the city of Astrient, where one of the main characters, Nico Rathe, works as a pointsman (a city police officer). His lover Philip Eslingen, a former soldier, has held various jobs in the city and is now part of the new City Guard, resented by the points. There is a sixth book in this series coming out in March, which I need to pre-order. Melissa Scott has become one of my favorite fantasy authors, and I am still working my way through her back catalogue.

Grave Importance, Vivian Shaw (library book). This is the third book in her "Dr. Greta Helsing" series, where the main character is a doctor for creatures that most of the world doesn't believe are real. I actually started the series with this book, but I felt like I was missing too much backstory, so I went to read the others first. This one is set mainly at a clinic and spa for mummies, "Oasis Natrum," in the hills above Marseille. I loved all the Egyptology and mummy-ology in the story. But that's really a sideline to the main story, about an invasion from another dimension. There's a fourth and final book in the series coming later this year, which I'm also looking foward to.

I will probably have to go back to work tomorrow, which will cut into my reading time again. But at least the libraries should be open again too.

Reading through despair

I woke up the morning after the US election to disbelief and despair. I think I went through all the classic stages of grief - definitely anger and denial - in the first hour. I remember the morning after in 2016, but this was and is so much worse.

I talk a lot about "comfort reading," both in real life discussions and on-line. At this particular time in my life, I am reading science fiction and fantasy pretty much exclusively. I know this is a coping mechanism, and as I've said elsewhere, it is working for me right now. It's a mix of re-reading favorite authors and trying new ones. I want compelling worlds, with competent and above all morally good (or at least grey) characters, who recognize their shared responsibility to people and their worlds, and act on that. I am collecting all the recommendations I can find, and I also wander through the sci-fi/fantasy section of the library each week. It's probably just as well that my local Barnes & Noble is still closed for renovations, so I'm not out buying on impulse. I have been re-reading a lot, which is not cutting down the TBR stacks, but at least I'm not adding to them (much).

Here is a short account of what I read in November:

The Adventures of Amina Al-Sirafi, Shannon Chakraborty (2023 TBR)  In this alt-medieval fantasy set in the Indian Ocean, retired pirate captain Amina Al-Sirafi is blackmailed into retrieving the kidnapped daughter of one of her old crew. For that, she needs to track down her remaining crew and claim her ship again. This was an amazing adventure set in a magical Muslim world. It's the first in a trilogy, and I am looking forward to Amina's next adventures.

Catalyst, Audrey Faye (2024 purchase)  This is the eleventh book in the Ghost Mountain series about a shifter pack in British Columbia. Audrey Faye self-publishes through Amazon, so her books are unfortunately only available there. The series begins with Alpha, where three wolves stumble on a pack that has been severely traumatized by evil leaders. One of the three, Hayden Scott, kills the alpha in a fight and assumes leadership, to find a small group of terrorized women and children. Over the books, the pack begins to come together, to heal, and then to thrive. The stories don't wallow in the trauma, this isn't torture porn. The reader learns only enough of what has happened to understand what a character is feeling or needs. These stories are an epitome of care and comfort and healing, and I re-read them regularly. In fact, I read seven of the previous books around this new one - in part because there are a lot of characters to keep track of (I made a chart).

The Long Way to a Small Angry Planet, Becky Chambers (re-read)  I turned to Becky Chambers earlier this year, when I was having foundation work done on my house. Her worlds and characters are compelling, and they also wrestle with ethical and personal questions, but most of all they take care, of themselves and others. I went on to re-read Record of a Spaceborn Few (for the second time this year).

Strange Practice, Dreadful Company, and Bitter Waters, Vivian Shaw (library books/ebook purchase)  I have seen these books recommended many times, and I finally went looking in the library. I found the third in the series (Grave Importance) on the shelves, but after reading about half, I felt like I was missing too much of the backstory, particularly the connections between the characters. I went back and started with the first instead, Strange Practice. In this series, Greta Helsing is a physician to supernatural creatures, with a Harley Street practice inherited from her father. Descended from Abraham van Helsing, the family turned from hunting "monsters" to protecting them. The books pull in (and slyly reference) characters and events from classic horror stories, which in this world actually chronicle true events but have been written over into fiction. The main characters includes vampires and vampyres, werewolves and mummies. I need to get back to the third, before the fourth and final comes out next year.

The Redoubtable Pali Avrampul, Victoria Goddard (re-read)  I picked up my first Victoria Goddard book, The Hands of the Emperor, in 2021. 738 pages later, I emerged with a new obsession, and eventually a shelf full of books. There are various connected series in Goddard's fantasy Nine Worlds. Pali Avrampul belongs to the second I read, the stories of the infamous Red Company, as her site says, "Friends by chance. Revolutionaries by accident. Folk heroes very much on purpose." After the Red Company disbanded, Pali went on to become a professor of history. This story begins with "Professor Black" preparing to take a sabbatical, which will involve meeting the Emperor. That leads to her to return to being Pali Avrampul and meeting up again with old friends. Goddard has just published the third book in a triology about Pali and her sisters, background stories to the Red Company. I have them in ebook, but since they are now available in print, I am adding them to this year's TBR. Victoria Goddard is also self-published, though not through Amazon, but I'm not sure her books are widely available in libraries.

I don't know what December will bring, reading-wise. I'm just grateful to have the comfort and distraction of good books, and fellow readers with whom to share books and recommendations.