Matt

Just finished Dragonslayer, book 2 in the Convergence series by Craig Alanson. Picking up immediately after the conclusion of the first book, I enjoyed this one immensely. Kaz and company are hunting a dragon and continuing to learn about magic, the Nether, and the Order. 

Ira Levin is a renowned author of horror and thrillers. Despite his acclaim, I had up to this point managed to avoid reading both Rosemary's Baby and this work. I'm grateful that The Howl Society book club selected this novella and inspired me to finally check it off my comically long TBR. Although I had never read any of Levin's books or seen their film adaptations, I was, however, familiar with Levin from my experience directing a community theatre production of his play Deathtrap. Based on Deathtrap, a thriller about writers, marketable ideas, love, a psychic, and more, I expected The Stepford Wives be thrilling, twisty, and perhaps even violent. In a way, it was. Without giving away too much of the plot, let it suffice to say that a family moves to the suburban town of Stepford, and the novel's protagonist Joanna begins to suspect that something odd is happening that transforms all the women into their husband's idea of an ideal house wife. Beautiful and devoted to housework. Throughout the book clues are dropped, some red herrings too, and dread begins to build toward the book's conclusion. While I felt it took a little bit to get started, once it got going it was a thrilling ride. Though this book isn't characterized by the overt violence of Deathtrap, the reader witnesses other types of violence including gaslighting, oppressive gender roles, and perhaps even something more sinister still. As much fun as it was to try to figure out what was going on in Stepford, I found the book's conclusion to not be totally satisfying. There was too much ambiguity in the book for my taste. Still, a great book that still feels frighteningly relevant today, despite having been written in the 1970s. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

The Road by Cormac McCarthy is sometimes thought of as one of the classics of the dystopian and post-apocalyptic genres, and it's easy to see why. While listening to The Road, read by Tom Stechschulte, I could see the melancholy blend of destruction, isolation, and hope - which echoes tone, mood, and conventions of earlier films and books - and the influence it has undoubtedly had on later works. McCarthy's writing is seemingly simple, yet also literary and complex. I somewhat regret listening to this book instead of reading it visually, as I feel like I lost a lot of the plot and details by choosing the audio version for this particular title, despite the excellent narration. I may well return to this story of a father and son, traversing the road in post-apocalyptic America, in its print form. I can, however, safely say that while the plot didn't move quickly enough nor was the writing at a sufficiently “popular level” for me to retain this audiobook without intense concentration, the parts I did hear and remember were often moving, infuriating, and/or thought-provoking. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Dark Matter by Blake Crouch (audiobook read by Jon Lindstrom) is a thrilling sci-fi novel resonating with themes of identity, family, and really weird physics. I almost don't want to give a synopsis, as I think this is a book best experienced with as little foreknowledge as posible, so I'll just say it's the best book of its sub-genre I've read in awhile, and the infinite possibilities contained within managed to keep me intrigued and surprised throughout. While a few elements of the book were a bit predictable, Crouch's character development and other innovative choices really make Dark Matter something unique. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Gideon the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir is a multi-genre adventure combining a dark fantasy, science fiction, and horror with an amusingly crass protagonist. It's funny, it's gay, it's suspenseful, and it's a novel of truly epic proportions! Gideon lives in the Ninth House, known as the shadow cult and keepers of the Locked Tomb, as an indentured surf of sorts. On the very day she's plotted to escape and enlist in the military her hated archrival, the necromancer Reverend Daughter Harrowhark Nonagesimus, announces that she and her Cavalier will travel to the First House to undertake a trial so she may become an immortal Lyctor in service to the God-Emperor. Except the Cavalier has fled (in the very shuttle Gideon planned to steal to get off-world), and now Gideon must assume the role in exchange for her freedom. Of course, things do not go as planned. Intrigued? Confused? Me too. Overall I found this book to be really exciting. I loved Gideon as a character and was really into her witty quips and irreverent temperament. I was also drawn in by the epic nature of the story and found many sections to be highly suspenseful and compelling. Unfortunately I did have a bit of a tough time tracking who was who and sometimes what exactly was going on. To be fair, Muir did provide a Dramatis Personae section at the beginning of the book, but nevertheless I just found this volume to be a little bit confusing. Muir chose to reveal information in a way that left the reader in the dark about a number of things until fairly late in the book. I can respect this as a storytelling device, but once again I simply felt confused or as if I had “missed something” throughout sections of the book. Despite these criticisms I enjoyed this book and hope to read the sequel soon. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️