Someone a few houses away from mine planted a very colorful garden. A few days ago I stopped by to take some photos.

Arcanum 101: Welcome New Students by Mercedes Lackey

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I kept going back and forth between 2 stars and 3. I’d probably consider it 2.5 stars, but that’s not an option and I felt like giving the book the benefit of the doubt. I purchased the book as part of one of the first book-related bundles I ever bought. (I *think* from Storybundle) This wasn’t the book that made me buy it.

A Feast for Crows by George R.R. Martin

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

The previous book was mostly about how the war had affected the common folk. While some of that is still present in this book, this time it’s mostly about how the aftermath of the war affects the noble folks. Mostly they’re working on dealing with consequences of their scheming. It’s almost entirely based out of King’s Landing, but includes their deals with the Freys and others. It’s interesting seeing how complicated unwinding some of those deals are. It would be an exaggeration to say it was a Pyrrhic victory, but it wasn’t nice and tidy either.

Star Wars: Dark Empire II by Tom Veitch

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

The story had some fun elements like a steampunk Jedi with a steampunk spaceship. But overall, it was a flat sequel that undid a lot of what mattered in the previous story without doing much the advance that main story. That’s probably because the source material, unless I’m misremembering, was a couple graphic novels. There isn’t a lot of room there to change a lot about the Star Wars extended universe. The only thing that made me groan was the catch-phrase-ification of a lot of the main characters’ famous sayings from the first trilogy.

Ansible by Stant Litore

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Like Wool, a series of short stories that slowly reveal more and more if this world. It’s hard to say too much without ruining the beauty of this story. Let’s just say that it is much more terrifying than I thought it would be from the descriptions. And, as I predicted, when you get to the last story, it really hits you with a real whammy.

Bible Adventures by Gabe Durham

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

It was interesting to read about this game from someone that had a similar upbringing and encountered it for the the first time at church, as did I. It was always a weird thing to exist, especially since I didn’t know at the time why it was a blue cartridge. He does a great job of reviewing the history behind the company that ended up creating the Wisdom Tree subsidiary. It was a crazy time to be in the games business and the company was no exception. I also enjoyed the look at the games that came out after Bible Adventures and how they were similar and different in scope and intent. As always, I love the personal story adject of the book as well.

Lightspeed Magazine, July 2010 by John Joseph Adams

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

As usual for anthology-type things, an expansion on my status updates. But, before that, let me just say that I love science fiction and fantasy short stories and listen to SFF/F podcasts to hear them. So this was a very fun read.

“No time like the present” - One of the things that I both love and hate about short stories is starting in media res. It feels like short stories aren’t allowed to introduce the world. You have to figure it out as the story goes along. Sometimes this can be fun in a detective sort of way. Sometimes it can be frustrating as you learn something halfway through that completely changes your understanding of the first half. Again, sometimes that can be fun like in Fight Club. Sometimes it’s just annoying. This time it was fun and I think having a kid narrator was part of the reason.