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Andromeda Klein, Frank Portman. Painful realism about the social hell of adolescence plus dude did a LOT of tarot research plus I sort of felt like if I had been reading very carefully I might have solved a mystery going on in the far background, but I wasn't and I didn't?
Gooseberry Bluff Community College of Magic: The Thirteenth Rib, David J. Schwartz. I was really hooked by the first few chapters of this, and then it sort of took an awkward turn for the epic (chapter 6, I went back and looked) and became much less compelling (to me), and we didn't get a lot of resolution on most of the threads that interested me, but I assume it's the first of a trilogy or something? I would definitely read the second one, now that the premise is well-established the rest of the series should be able to proceed without quite so much info-dumping. (That sounds more critical than I mean. The world-building is handled really well, all smoothly and fun, until the chapter 6+ stuff comes in.)
The Ships We Sail, anthology by the same people as Puzzle Box. Airships, spaceships, boats. A couple more possible file-offs, although also some that felt entirely original. The standout story for me was Off Nominal, by![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
ali_wildgoose, an extremely realistic Mars-expedition story that had me on the edge of my seat. And yes, by extremely realistic I mean "exciting footage of a man disengaging an equipment rack", as one of the characters puts it, this is not a story about things blowing up or discovering space monsters or whatever. This is a story for people who went to Space Camp, or dreamed of going to Space Camp, who are genuinely thrilled by the minutiae of real space exploration, who never get tired of Apollo 13, who think "on Mars, on Mars, on Mars, on Mars, on Mars" is one of the most moving and memorable lines from any science fiction book. This is in many ways the movie I wish they had made instead of Europa Report, profoundly character-driven, where the tension comes from whether the actual goals of the mission will succeed, and what sacrifices have been/will need to be made, not who some stupid monster will eat next. Highly recommended for space nerds.
Watermelon Summer, Anna Hess. I read this awhile ago and have been dithering over how much I wanted to say about it. In brief, I think it was well-written but problematic.
( in less brief )
Gooseberry Bluff Community College of Magic: The Thirteenth Rib, David J. Schwartz. I was really hooked by the first few chapters of this, and then it sort of took an awkward turn for the epic (chapter 6, I went back and looked) and became much less compelling (to me), and we didn't get a lot of resolution on most of the threads that interested me, but I assume it's the first of a trilogy or something? I would definitely read the second one, now that the premise is well-established the rest of the series should be able to proceed without quite so much info-dumping. (That sounds more critical than I mean. The world-building is handled really well, all smoothly and fun, until the chapter 6+ stuff comes in.)
The Ships We Sail, anthology by the same people as Puzzle Box. Airships, spaceships, boats. A couple more possible file-offs, although also some that felt entirely original. The standout story for me was Off Nominal, by
ali_wildgoose, an extremely realistic Mars-expedition story that had me on the edge of my seat. And yes, by extremely realistic I mean "exciting footage of a man disengaging an equipment rack", as one of the characters puts it, this is not a story about things blowing up or discovering space monsters or whatever. This is a story for people who went to Space Camp, or dreamed of going to Space Camp, who are genuinely thrilled by the minutiae of real space exploration, who never get tired of Apollo 13, who think "on Mars, on Mars, on Mars, on Mars, on Mars" is one of the most moving and memorable lines from any science fiction book. This is in many ways the movie I wish they had made instead of Europa Report, profoundly character-driven, where the tension comes from whether the actual goals of the mission will succeed, and what sacrifices have been/will need to be made, not who some stupid monster will eat next. Highly recommended for space nerds.Watermelon Summer, Anna Hess. I read this awhile ago and have been dithering over how much I wanted to say about it. In brief, I think it was well-written but problematic.
( in less brief )
