I made it a good way through the Joy Harjo collection I mentioned last month, but it isn’t quite done yet. The onset of spring (Summer? Does summer in Duluth really start until July?) and a wonderful trip to Montreal meant that I wound up focusing on other books. I’ll have it done soon, though. Montreal meant a slower pace overall, with a few big sci-fi novels taking over much of my reading time. I’m not sure if Adrian Tchaikovsky’s work is my all-time favorite, but it makes for good summer reading. Children of Time’s spiders are delicious fun.

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The Book of the Month:

Ghost Wall, by Sarah Moss

Ghost Wall is a short Lord of the Flies-esque novel that reminds me very much of Octavia Butler’s work. Its message is blunt, yes, but the bluntness of it is chilling. In Moss’s novel, a camping trip goes badly, bit by bit, the patriarchy slowly turning abusive. What happens when men have too much power? Octavia Butler and Sarah Moss can answer that question. Ghost Wall is creepy and beautiful start to finish, with an ending that takes a sadly realistic approach to the aftermath of abuse.

The Rest:

Children of Time, by Adrian Tchaikovsky

The better of the two Tchaikovsky novels I read this month, Children of Time tackles questions of alienness and what it means to deserve a place in the world. So many spiders! I loved the spiders from the get-go. I know there are two more books in the series, but I might pass on them because I thought the ending to this one was so good.

Shards of Earth, by Adrian Tchaikovsky

A spooky (and slightly psychedelic?) start to a trilogy. I’m not sure how to describe this novel, which is a brick of a book set in a universe dealing with the return of a terrible enemy decades after the destruction of Earth, but I am looking forward to its sequels.

Revenge of the Librarians, by Tom Gould

Tom Gould takes on the pandemic and authorship in the 21st century in this fun set of comic strips. I read these in a park in Montreal with my wife, which was wonderful.

The Mimicking of Known Successes, by Malka Ann Older

A fun Sherlock Holmes-y sci-fi mystery with a lovely lesbian romance at its center. I loved it and was very disappointed to learn that the sequel won’t be out until next year.

The Wicked + The Divine: Vol. 2 - The Wicked + The Divine Book Four, by Kieron Gillen

The conclusion of The Wicked + The Divine maybe doesn’t make sense? I think I preferred DIE, which Gillen constructed a little more tightly. Regardless, the color and the music and the life of The Wicked + The Divine make for fun reading throughout.

The Last Castle: The Epic Story of Love, Loss, and American Royalty in the Nation’s Largest Home, by Denise Kiernan

This account of the building and legacy of George Vanderbilt’s Biltmore estate is a little too credulous and a little too superficial. It desperately needs to engage with the inequality and racial dynamics at play in the late 19th and early 20th century United States, but it steadfastly refuses to do that. The book is engaging, but a deeper examination of its subject’s legacy would have made it quite something.