JuniperGreen

A bit belated and only as a short overview: books I finished between April and June.

1. Adrian Tchaikovsky, City of Last Chances
   Disillusioned take on revolutions set in a city that has always had a darkness to it.

2. Lor Gislason (ed.), Bound in Flesh: An Anthology of Trans Body Horror
   As the title says, trans body horror. A bit too tame and subdued for my taste, but recommend for people who don't crave the extremes.

3. Maria Ying (Devi Lacroix & Benjanun Sriduangkaew), The Gunrunner and Her Hound
   Can't go wrong with sexy, dangerous women falling in lust and love.

4. Priest, Itinerant Doctor
   Can't go wrong with people being sucked into their own subconsciousness either, as far as I'm concerned. Enjoyed this a lot more than The Ultimate Blue Seal, the first part of the duology.

5. Adrian Tchaikovsky, One Day All This Will Be Yours
   The only timewar romance I'm interested in.

6. Mary Shelley, Frankenstein
   Read with Frankenstein Weekly. I actually haven't read it before, so it was a lot of fun - and very insightful - to follow along with the highly annotated edition of the 1818 text.

7. Gabino Iglesias, The Devil Takes You Home
   Effective blend of noir and horror. Would've enjoyed it more if the female characters had been granted the same interiority as the male ones.

8. Samuel R. Delany, The Mad Man
   When it comes to cerebral gay porn, no one can hold a candle to Delany. This one probably would've wowed me more if I had read it before Through the Valley of the Nest of Spiders. The right reading order is always publication order. Still a very worthwhile endeavor.

9. Meng Xi Shi, Shenshang (Estranged)
   Plot- and action-focused xanxia with MXS typical slow burn romance. I liked it a lot, although parts of it read a bit like a first draft, lacking her usual polish.

10. Tang Jiuqin, Nan Chan
    My god, what a book! Didn't think the love story between a horny fish and a tired zombie sword would be so compelling, but T97 weaves some magic. The official English translation is slated for 2024 by Rosmei, and I hope people looking for quality queer fantasy literature will actually read it!

LinkClick's 1st season was already phenomenal, a beautifully devastating time-travel story ending in one of the meanest cliffhangers imaginable - and it seems like the team is hellbent on surpassing it in every way possible. I have extremely high expectations for season 2. I especially expect to get emotionally destroyed by it several times over. Good times ahead.

Wow, everything's so blue here. Anyway, this is not an April's fool joke, but a look back on the books I've read in the first quarter of 2023. I'm reading more serialized fiction than usual this year, so in between the Frankenstein Weekly thing, ongoing danmei translations, manhwa, manga, and webtoons, I've only managed to finish 8 books, several of which I'd started last year, and one was a re-read. Not impressive, but it's about quality, not quantity, eh?

The books in question:

1. Alyson Greaves, Secrets of Dorley Hall: The Sisters of Dorley Book Two
   Round 2 in the force femme dungeon, and just like book #1 this is a stunningly well written and comprehensive look at gender feelings, gender roles, and what it means to be trans in the UK.

2. Otaro Maijo, Tsukumojuuku
   Maijo's homage to Seiryouin Ryuusui's Japanese Detective Club novels is a meta-fictional detective story where the narrative itself is the enemy and the author has to be killed. A bit like the Bible, except somebody fucks a Jesus statue. Great book, absolutely not recommended.

3. Shinji Cobkubo, Sabikui Bisco #4
   Gets some credit for being the rare light novel that doesn't use the concept of sex slaves for titillation, but tries to explore the ramifications to an explosive and apparently rather divisive end. The most ambitious installment yet, but not my favorite.

4. Priest, The Ultimate Blue Seal
   Great main character, rather lackluster science fiction story.

5. Various, Stories of the Eye
   Horror anthology with an intriguing premise, unfortunately the stories themselves are a bit bland. From an imprint called Weirdpunk books, I'd expected something weirder. And more punk. (Also, why is it always the same two handful of authors in these indie horror anthos and why are almost all of them so fucking pasty white?)

6. Paul Tremblay, The Cabin at the End of the World
   Also contains a bit more white people nonsense than I care for - like the fact that the main characters buy their daughter in China and the narrative shows this bit of child trafficking as something unambiguously positive - but it's still a neat little horror story. I liked the ending, I'll probably hate the film.

7. Kiwamu Sato, Tezcatlipoca
   A Mexican cartel boss on the run, a disgraced Japanese doctor gone organ peddler, and a young lonely boy become entangled in a new business in the organ trade. An incredibly strong showing from Kiwamu Sato, as unrelenting in its depiction of violence as in its evisceration of capitalism, told by a disaffected omniscient narrator with obsessive attention to detail. The author's not afraid of going off on tangents either, enriching the story beyond what's absolutely necessary for the plot.

8. Meng Xi Shi, Thousand Autumns
   The re-read - my favorite danmei wuxia story in a very smooth English translation with gorgeous art by two beloved fan-artists. I criticize Seven Seas a lot, but here they did good.