Stuff I've Been Enjoying As The Pace Of Life Ebbs and Flows

Stuff I've Been Enjoying As The Pace Of Life Ebbs and Flows

One thing that e-book libraries make apparent, aside from that my To-Be-Read pile is ever expanding, is that I also have a Did-Read pile. I find it a little joyful to scroll back through the list and think, "Oh, wow, that's right" when I see a title that brought me to a fun place for a while. Here are a few of those books and series (I've been in a loop where I'll go weeks at a time without reading much fiction, and then dive in full depth when I do find something that captures me) that you may find worth tracking down.

The Between and My Soul To Keep, both by Tananarive Due. I came to these probably out of a sense of "Huh, I thought I had read more of Tananarive's books than that", so let's track down a couple more and see what I missed. I think I first picked up The Good House when it came out? Hard to remember, that's also the stretch of my personal timeline where my fiction reading had dried up to almost nil, due the demands of grad school. Any rate, coming to The Between and My Soul To Keep was like spending time with a lifelong friend I haven't talked to in a bit; Due's voice just wraps me in like that, like we're sitting in a good little restaurant and she's catching me up on all the wonderful weird things she's been up to since last we met. These are... these are books somewhere in the lands Anne Rice and Toni Morrison explored, that wonderful strange very near to home horror of secretive family stories confirmed by the stranger on your doorstep. I think whether you sip or gulp of Tananarive's books will depend a lot on moods; but when the mood does grab, there's a great deal to love here.

A Thousand Li, A Xianxia Cultivation Series by Tao Wong. This one came to me purely as a "You might enjoy this" at the end of another book. I took a flyer and came out after 4 books wondering where the time went. Let's see, how would I recommend this (to anyone other than my 12 year old self)... whether you spent hours wondering over the Shaolin monks, or simply enjoyed Naruto on occasion, these may be worth your while. Tao Wong also has a few other books out, after I caught up to A Thousand Li I read the first couple books of Wong's The System Apocalypse series, which is a whole n'other vibe. Either way, you don't have to know what martial arts madness might be to enjoy these books; Tao Wong will be happy to teach you!

Second Hand Curses, and the Spells, Swords, Stealth series by Drew Hayes. And in the one good turn deserves another sweeps, Drew Hayes' books came up in my recommended list after reading a few of Tao Wong's books. I dove into the NPC's world (Spells Swords Stealth) wholeheartedly, and then picked up Second Hand Curses when I ran through the NPC's world. Hmm, let's see. Mostly, as with the other wonderful authors I'm singing of, Drew Hayes is my kind of crazy. Here, we're talking of the kind of crazy that hoped, just maybe, you'd pack up your D&D books from the after school game at the rec center, get ready to head home, and accidentally stumble through a portal to your game world before you got there. If that makes sense, the NPC's series will be your kind of crazy too.

Which brings me to the Wandering Inn by PirateAba. I am not up to date, I think I've read through the first 3? books/chapters of The Wandering Inn so far. PirateAba has been working these as a daily story for at their website for quite some time now; think of it as a daily webcomic, only as a serial story for RPG geeks, and you're in the right neighborhood. I've only visited here, not yet taken up residence, simply because I did come to the Inn after reading Tao Wong's and Drew Hayes' series first and my own personal exhaustion threshold set in; still, I'll return to the Inn, or maybe it'll return to find me again when I'm ready...

Wayward Children by Seanan McGuire. Here's a novella series that takes Peter Straub and Clive Barker, among others, as a jumping off point. Fun fun fun, especially if you've ever driven past an old boarding school in New England, one of those granite mysteries hiding behind changing leaves and a broken down iron gate. Fair warning, for me, the Wayward Children grabbed me in the first book and didn't let go until the last one. I'd finish one, buy the next one thinking "Oh, I'll read something else in between and come back to these later" and the very next night I'm an hour past bedtime, finishing up the book and going through the same exercise all over again.

The Clocktaur War, A Wizard's Guide To Defensive Baking, Nine Goblins, and The Twisted Ones by T Kingfisher aka Ursula Vernon. There's a lot of different here, a lot of delightfully mad, interesting and twisty lanes through the multiverse. My favorite part is that, looking at the list, it means the next time I wander into Kingfisher/Vernon's bibliography, odds are damned good I'll find something fun to grab no matter where my head is, which always a nice thing to know about a writer.