Books

I read…a lot. Here’s where I ramble about books and printed media.

Wet Visions edited by Cyn Mason

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Book 11 of 2026: Wet Visions edited by Cyn Mason.

⭐️⭐️⭐️: An anthology of stories by (primarily) PNW authors, all of which are…wet. Rain, oceans, fog, mist, bogs…and occasionally some blood. For me, no major standouts, but a few made me laugh, one made me uncomfortable, and overall not at all a bad collection.

Long-time Norwescon people may be amused at seeing this one pop up — the editor and many of the authors were attending professionals at early Norwescons (around the NWC4 and NWC5 era), and I kept seeing it being mentioned in their bios. Eventually, my curiosity kicked in, and I found a used copy online. Mine is copy #22 of a run of 700. Going with the “wet” theme, the cover uses an altered version of publisher Hypatia Press (“Hywetia Press”), and the book is bound in a dark green and printed on light mossy green paper.

Me holding Wet Visions

A Sorceress Comes to Call by T. Kingfisher

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Book 10 of 2026: A Sorceress Comes to Call by T. Kingfisher.

⭐️⭐️⭐️: Dark and disturbing, but (for me) very enjoyable adaptation of a Brothers Grimm tale (“The Goose Girl”) that I wasn’t very familiar with. The author is the writer guest of honor at next week’s Norwescon, and I wanted to make sure I had read something of hers before the con, and this was the one I stumbled across as we wandered through local bookstores.

Me holding A Sorceress Comes to Call

Challenger by Diane Carey

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Book 2 of 2026: Challenger by Diane Carey: ⭐️⭐️⭐️.

The tone of this one was really odd. Much of it is centered on the main crew of another ship, which is fine in and of itself, but there was something about their interactions that was so flippant and irreverent that for me, it blew right past “different ship with a different, quirkier feel than the Enterprise” all the way to “how are these people functioning with each other, within Starfleet, or in the universe in general?” As a capstone to the series, it wrapped up all the major plot points well enough, but the odd tone was really off-putting for me.

Me holding Challenger