Updating about the last three weeks or so of reading.
Oblivion. The big item is that I’m this close (imagine fingers a millimeter apart) from finishing a 1504 page, nine-volume set from Joshua James and Daniel Young, Oblivion. I’m justifying reading the whole thing by telling myself I’m going to write a longer, stand-alone review. The series is entertaining and annoying in equal measure, and we’ll leave it at that.
The Gurkha and the Lord of Tuesday, Saad Z. Hossein. Hossein is amazing. “Genre-bending” and “wildly creative” are overused terms, but Hossein’s stories—this one included—are the best of both, and do it with ease and panache. Without giving too much away, it’s hard to tell who the villains and the heroes are at a given point in the story. It is safe to say this did not end at all the way I expected, and I laughed all the way through it.
Read again factor: already started!
The Haunting of Tram Car 015, P. Djeli Clark. Clark, along with Saad Z. Hossein and Nghi Vo, is one of the authors I’m incredibly grateful to have found this past year. The story is set in the same alt-past Cairo where Djinn move among humans as A Dead Djinn In Cairo. At its heart it’s a deft respin and reinterpretation of the classic hard-boiled detective genre. An excellent and entertaining read, and delightful to read aside from the story because Clark is so good at what he does.
Read again factor: bringing it the next time I take the tram from the central station out to Maadhi.
Djinn City: A Novel, Saad Z. Hossein. Same universe as the story above, but set in the present day rather than the future. And contra what William Dalrymple thought, the actual city of Djinns is apparently Dhaka—among a few other places. This is a topsy-turvy story of people (and djinn) plunged into a mind-bendingly complicated problem that spans multiple worlds, where nothing and no one are fully as they seem. My major beef with this is that Hossein very ruthlessly kills off my favorite character too early—I briefly thought I’d wandered into a Warhammer novel during that chapter, it was so coldly-done. The novel is a little less refined than the other two I read around the same time, but still a solid read.
Read again factor: Do I get an extra wish if I do that?
Death of Integrity, Guy Haley. No, this is not “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington: Ten Years Later" or anything to do with 2020. It is technically Space Marine Battles #12, but is fine as a stand-alone if you know a little bit about the Warhammer universe. This was an above-average Space Marine effort. Two very different Space Marine chapters, shifty and untrustworthy cog-worshippers, a warp-born (and warp-borne) conglomeration of ships and asteroids code-named “Death of Integrity”, thousands of Genestealers, and…a very unhappy and very sentient AI from humanity’s less grim-and-dark past make for a rollicking, frequently explosive mix. The aspect of this I liked the most was the effort Haley put into character development for the two senior members of the Space Marines chapters. They are both fighting to face down their inner demons, one quite a bit more literally than the other. This is done with surprising detail and a subtle touch, in a way which highlights their commonalities and differences. Well done.
Read again factor: packing this for my next long cruise through the warp.Escape from Baghdad!, Saad Z. Hossein. Hossein, who has emerged as one of my favorite authors of 2020, takes on the perils and perturbations of life in Baghdad immediately after the U.S. invasion. Take two ordinary Baghdadis, a rotating assortment of invaders and indigenously-produced gunmen, a mysterious time-piece, and someone who you’ve either already met or will see again, in Djinn City and leaven it with subversive, satiric humor. The result was one of the best books I read in 2020.
Read again factor: My copy is hotter than a Main Supply Route in July.
As a rule, I don’t make resolutions, although this might count as one. My plan is to not purchase anything for my own reading use for the rest of the month. We’ll see how this goes: I’ve tried similar things in the past with mixed success. Crossing fingers for a good start to 2021.