Five bookish thoughts...

[sawyl]

One way and another, the last week has left me on the verge of exhaustion and barely able to string two words together so, in lieu of anything coherent, a handful of random thoughts:

• I've spent a fair part of the last week powering through Gareth L. Powell's Macaque novels. They're a total blast — as might be expected with a foul-mouthed, hyper-violent, hard-drinking monkey in the lead role — and surprisingly subtle, with a well drawn cast of characters and some clever world-building that allows each book to move into new territory without invalidating what has gone before
• I also adored Powell's The Recollection, a impressive space opera that stands alongside the likes of Banks, Reynolds and Macleod, and which links up with the plot of Macaque Attack, the latest of the monkey series. I liked it so much I wolfed the whole thing in one sitting
• Katherine Addison's The Goblin Emperor really is as luminous and wonderful as everyone says it is. Not a great surprise, given that Katherine Addison is a nom de plume of the excellent Sarah Monette
• Having caught up with Francesca Haig's appearance on Tea and Jeopardy, I'm looking forward to reading The Fire Sermon when it comes out. It's Wyndhamesque, dystopian, and features separated at birth twins each of whom can only live as long as the other survives. Sounds just my sort of thing
• I'm looking forward to Elizabeth Bear's Karen Memory with a fiery passion, counting off the days until I can get my hands on a copy...