Tag Archives: Reading Well

Reading Well: The Lies of Locke Lamora by Scott Lynch

Posted on January 8, 2017 by Daniel (@MKNN)

Scott Lynch‘s The Lies of Locke Lamora (2013) surprised me. The mixture of world-building, long con game, and more traditional inverted-hero plot takes a while to get going, but once it does, the book is a very fast, very engaging … Continue reading →

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Reading Well: The Girl with All the Gifts by M.R. Carey

Posted on December 30, 2016 by Daniel (@MKNN)

Until I began reading The Girl with All the Gifts (2014), I didn’t realize how familiar I was with the author. Here listed as M. R. Carey, it’s the same Mike Carey who wrote one of the greatest comic book arcs in … Continue reading →

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Reading Well: Lilith’s Brood by Octavia Butler

Posted on December 20, 2016 by Daniel (@MKNN)

Octavia Butler‘s Lilith’s Brood is the best “hard” science fiction I’ve read since The Sparrow. It’s actually a trilogy of short novels (maybe even novellas)–Dawn (1987), Adulthood Rites (1988), and Imago (1989)–that were collected under the title Xenogenesis (1989) and then republished as Lilith’s Brood in 2000. The novel/s revolve/s around … Continue reading →

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Reading Well: Harry Potter and the Cursed Child by J.K. Rowling

Posted on December 5, 2016 by Daniel (@MKNN)

The latest (final?) installment of the Harry Potter saga is a play, rather than a novel: J.K. Rowling‘s Harry Potter and the Cursed Child (2016) is in production in London and will  be, well, potentially forever I suppose. Probably a decent last-longer … Continue reading →

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Reading Well: My Brilliant Friend by Elena Ferrante

Posted on November 23, 2016 by Daniel (@MKNN)

Not only am I pretty late to the Elena Ferrante party, works like My Brilliant Friend (2012)–that is, what is considered “serious” contemporary literature, stuff that is positively reviewed in major newspapers and the like–rarely finds its way onto my reading pile. … Continue reading →

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Reading Well: Supernova: The Knight, The Princess, and the Falling Star by Dewi Lestari

Posted on November 10, 2016 by Daniel (@MKNN)

Supernova (2001) by Dewi Lestari came to my attention via an article I cannot find now that talked about the global diversity of contemporary science fiction–Lestari is Indonesian, and the book is firmly set there. The subtitle was added for later editions … Continue reading →

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Reading Well: Close to the Machine by Ellen Ullman

Posted on October 28, 2016 by Daniel (@MKNN)

I don’t understand how I’ve never encountered Ellen Ullman‘s writing before: she writes elegantly and intelligently about the role of technology–and specifically software and software development–in our world. Close to the Machine (1997) talks about her career as a (female, no less) … Continue reading →

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Reading Well: Children of God by Mary Doria Russell

Posted on October 17, 2016 by Daniel (@MKNN)

Children of God (1998) is Mary Doria Russell‘s sequel to The Sparrow, which I adored and wrote about here. The structure remains similar: chapters alternate back and forth in time, with the novel as a whole closing in on an endpoint from both … Continue reading →

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Reading Well: Storm Front by Jim Butcher

Posted on October 3, 2016 by Daniel (@MKNN)

Published in 2000, Storm Front is the first installment of The Dresden Files, a series Jim Butcher has extended over a dozen books. The protagonist is Harry Dresden, a traditional hard-edged private investigator in contemporary (or, near contemporary) Chicago. It’s all very noir: gangsters … Continue reading →

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Reading Well: Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro

Posted on September 23, 2016 by Daniel (@MKNN)

The Remains of the Day is Kazuo Ishiguro‘s best known novel; Never Let Me Go published in 2005, was his sixth novel, followed by a seventh in 2015. It’s an odd book. Ishiguro’s voice and craft are incredible: poised, restrained, full of … Continue reading →

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