Anthony > Recent Status Updates

Read Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s excellent, intimate portrait of a newly wealthy man in Lagos examining his life choices.

Read “Bluebonnets,” an affecting story about two middle-aged lonely people having a brief fling.

Read “Pocketful of Dharma,” set in a convincingly drawn future Chengdu, and featuring a wonderfully compelling protagonist

Read Jess Row’s “The Empties,” which suffered from its being a non-SFF writer’s attempt at crafting a post-apocalyptic future; Kelly Sandoval’s “The One They Took Before,” a somewhat evocative but sketchy tale of the Fae; T.C. Boyle’s intriguing but melodramatic “The Relive Box”; and the fantastic, funny, and moving “How to Become a Robot in 12 Easy Steps” by A. Merc Rustad.

Read Nathan Ballingrud’s “Skullpocket,” a clever, darkly funny Southern Gothic take on a group ghouls’ relationship with the human inhabitants in a small town; and Kelly Link’s extremely funny and inventive and oddball “I Can See Right Through You.” I’m definitely going to seek out more of her work.

Read Daniel H. Wilson’s compact, impactful “The Blue Afternoon That Lasted Forever”

Read Sam J. Miller’s “We Are the Cloud,” which had very intriguing aspects, and some surprisingly vivid queer content, but also didn’t totally coalesce.

Read “Grief,” one of the most affecting stories of the collection so far.

Read the evocative, bittersweet “Strays”

Read Adam-Troy Castro’s wonderfully amusing and surprisingly sweet “The Thing About Shapes to Come”

It’s very satisfying to learn more about Sigurd, and I’m impressed with how well Bennett wove his backstory and exposition into a genuinely exciting action sequence.

I’ve been enjoying this throughout, but it’s really ramping up in a very fun and satisfying manner now.

I’m intrigued after one chapter. Bennett’s writing is crisp and fluid and sparky, and the world he’s created feels original, at least in the early going.

Read Susan Palwick’s tender, compact “Windows”

Read “How the Marquis Got His Coat Back,” an enjoyable little trifle of a tale by the now-known-to-be-very-problematic Neil Gaiman

Finished Part Two. It’s gotten satisfyingly more and more emotionally complicated for our characters as it’s gone on.

Finished Part One. It’s refreshingly intimate with closely observed, authentically drawn characters.

Read and enjoyed the first chapter. It’s pleasantly zippy and feels alive. I will say it’s a bit jarring to read something as peppy as this after being in the presence of Ursula K. Le Guin’s restrained poetry for the past few days. But it’s also a refreshing contrast.

I’m finding myself slowing down a bit as I near the end of this masterpiece, mostly because I’m wanting to savor and immerse myself in one of the most surprisingly magnificent sequences of writing I’ve ever encountered in any novel: the depiction of two people on a harrowing, lonely trek across hundreds of miles of ice.

Ursula K. Le Guin was one of the most innovative thinkers and masterful crafter of language of anyone who’s ever put pen to paper.

I’m rereading this masterpiece 7 years after my first encounter with it. Only chapter in and I am once again awed by Le Guin’s rich and complex approach, and her incredible skill at crafting beautiful, evocative sentences.

Read Jo Walton’s intriguing “Sleeper”

Read Theodora Goss’s fascinating, haunting “Cimmeria: From the Journal of Imaginary Anthropology”

Read Sofia Samatar’s evocative, inventive anti-colonization story “Ogres of East Africa”

Read Seanan McGuire’s mermaid tale “Each to Each.” This is my second encounter with her work, and I’m once again pretty allergic to what she offers. I recognize that she has intriguing ideas and that her voice is distinctive in its own way. But I have bounced off of caring about any of her characters, and I don’t find myself buying into the worlds she creates.

Read two more brief but distinctive glimpses into lost souls’ lives: “Teenage Punk” and “Steps”

Read “How to Get Back to the Forest” by Sofia Samatar, “Help Me Follow My Sister into the Land of the Dead” by Carmen Maria Machado, “Tortoiseshell Cats Are Not Refundable” by Cat Rambo, “The Bad Graft” by Karen Russell, and “A Guide to the Fruits of Hawai’i” by Alaya Dawn Johnson. All are vividly written, featuring bold ideas. Of these, I most enjoyed Machado’s darkly funny and sad story.

Glad to re-enter the Expanse universe with this novella, which is so far a satisfyingly intimate character study.

Read the amusing “Electric Car, El Paso” and the disturbingly frank “Sex Appeal.”

Read “Friends” and “Unmangeable,” both excellent mini stories. The first was a touching portrait of an elderly couple, and the second was a harrowing glimpse into the life of a severely alcoholic mother of two.