63/2024 – ⭐️⭐️⭐️
A trio of Federation spies must escape the Klingon empire after being uncovered, and Kirk and company are brought in to assist. An enjoyable fifth-year TOS adventure.
personal
The stuff about me and my life. The “diary” side of blogging.
Failure to Launch: A Tour of Ill-Fated Futures edited by Kel McDonald
62/2024 – ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Really good anthology of short comics about historical moments, ideas, and efforts that were unsuccessful. I’d forgotten the premise between the time I ordered this one and when it arrived, so it was a peasant surprise to discover it was all non-fiction, and while a couple of the stories I’d heard of before, much of these little tidbits of history were new to me.
Uncanny Magazine Issue 60 edited by Lynne M. Thomas, Michael Damian Thomas, Monte Lin, and Betsy Aoki
61/2024 – ⭐️⭐️⭐️
This issue’s standouts were “The 6% Squeeze” by Eddie Robson, “A Stranger Knocks” by Tananarive Due, “¡Sangronas! Un Lista de Terror” by M. M. Olivas, and “A Menu of First Favorite Meals” by Jo Miles.
What Fresh Hell is This? Perimenopause, Menopause, Other Indignities, and You by Heather Corinna
59/2024 – ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
While I wasn’t born with a uterus, roughly half of the people I know and encounter throughout my life were (including my wife, who handed this book to me after she read it), and as most of the ones I’m most familiar with are within a few years of my age (51 as of this moment), this seemed like good info to have. The book is great; very readable and often quite funny, with a wealth of information. I certainly had no idea how much research into menopause has only been done in the past couple decades; I’d guess that even people who think they know what’s up are likely to find something new. This is an excellent, informative, and likely quite validating resource for anyone with a uterus who is approaching or experiencing menopause, who is planning on yeeting their uterus and facing sudden menopause, who never had a uterus but values understanding (as much as possible) what those who do are going through. There’s also a postscript chapter addressing what trans women may expect as they age.
Wyrd Sisters by Terry Pratchett
58/2024 – ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Shakespeare, more or less, by way of Pratchett’s Discworld, and quite a lot of fun. Particularly enjoyed the recognition of the power of the word, and how it can bend history out of joint if used unscrupulously.
Binti: The Complete Trilogy by Nnedi Okorafor
56/2024 – ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Fascinating collection of novellas following Binti, a young Himba woman, as she leaves her traditional home to journey to a galactic university to study math, only to find herself the sole survivor of an attack and bonded in a mysterious way to one of her attackers. The settings and events combined the traditional lifestyle of the Himba people with far-future technology, living ships, and all manner of alien races, and with some serious questions of prejudice and how people see unfamiliar others as more primitive. I really enjoyed this, and am looking forward to exploring more of Okorafor’s books.
Clarkesworld Magazine Issue 215 edited by Neil Clarke
55/2024 – ⭐️⭐️⭐️
Highlights for me this month were “The Deformed Saint and the Poison Wind” by David McGillveray and “Three Circuits of the Monoceros Ring” by Marisca Pichette.
Forever Peace by Joe Haldeman
54/2024 – ⭐️⭐️⭐️
This is one of those that, while unquestionably good, was difficult for me to really get into and ultimately just didn’t resonate with me. Impressively (and sometimes depressingly) prescient in some ways, I think that a lot of it was simply too directly relatable to present social and political realities that it was hard for me to enjoy it.
Smut Peddler X: Ten Years of Impeccable Pornoglyphics edited by Andrea Purcell
53/2024 – ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
I picked up the original version of this book ten years ago, during its Kickstarter campaign, when an online acquaintance who contributed a story was promoting it. I enjoyed it then, and it was fun to revisit it a decade later, especially as I hadn’t re-read it since then, so had forgotten the majority of the stories, and the new content looking back at the original project was a nice addition. As with the six other books that now exist in the “Smut Peddler” series (seven if you count this 10th anniversary version separately), all of which live on my shelves, it’s a very enjoyable collection of fun, inclusive, explicit sexytimes.
For fun, my review of the original release: “I actually read this last year when I got the .pdf version from the Kickstarter project, the physical book was delivered earlier this year. I found the Kickstarter when one of my friends announced that she was contributing a piece to the project. Perhaps not my usual reading material, but I really enjoyed all of it — I don’t remember there being a bad entry in the bunch, and quite a few extremely good stories. Not at all disappointed to have it in my collection, and I’ll be adding the second volume when it’s Kickstarter project goes live.”
