POWERFULLY EVOCATIVE HISTORICAL novel details the struggles and joys of a young girl and her Russian immigrant family in a coal-mining town in early 20th century Pennsylvania. Rich in detail and emotional weight. A MINUS
AN ASTONISHING, HARROWING, BEAUTIFUL novel mixes the everyday horrors of racism with the terrors of the supernatural in a tale of a brutal Florida reformatory haunted by the boys who died there. SOLID A
Anybody know what publishers generally prefer when it comes to novel lengths? Is there even a strong preference? I’m writing in SFF, like many of you, in case that makes a difference.
A SURREAL POST-APOCALYPTIC SETTING lends power to this dreamlike retelling of Macbeth. Hallucinatory, atmospheric prose captures the point of view of a man pushed to his limits with no options but to fight. B PLUS
MURDERBOT’S BACK, BUT not better than ever. In fact, the semi-human fighting machine is feeling vulnerable—at the worst possible time, as it and the humans it protects are dealing with multiple interplanetary threats. Fast-paced, thoughtful. A MINUS
HOW TO SAVE THE WORLD? The characters in Naomi Alderman’s crisp near-future technothriller have a lot of ideas—some of them on a collision course with others. Action and deft satire blend in this high-energy yet thoughtful read. A MINUS
All Quiet on the Western Front, by Erich Maria Remarque. You are a teenage German boy who signs up to fight in WWI with your classmates, and you never find anything worth fighting for, just mud and death in the trenches, as any sense of yourself or any recognizable future fades. 4 of 5 library cats 🐈 🐈 🐈 🐈.
SHIMMERING, GORGEOUS, WISTFUL meditation on life, love, art, and loss set against the surreal cityscape of New York in the 2020 COVID lockdown. Everything is vivid, everything feels deeply true. A MINUS
Im having difficulty finding names I like. I need two - three names that roll off the tongue and wouldn’t be out of place with a long hyphenated surname....
A LONG-FORGOTTEN LITERARY GEM from 1938, reissued in a sumptuous new edition. Beautifully stark modernist novel traces the gradual diminution of a woman’s life with pitiless clarity. A MINUS
THE FAMILY THAT SLEUTHS TOGETHER…finds out more about themselves and each other in this charming, engrossing California murder mystery starring three generations of smart, sharp women solving a complicated crime. B PLUS
Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott. You are the most iconoclastic/‘tomboyish’ of four young sisters, and it looks like you may chart a path as a writer, but as your sisters fall into the roles allocated them by the 19th century patriarchy, you too may be deprived of the dull spinsterhood you aspired to.
A SPIRITUALIST’S WIFE STRUGGLES to come to terms with her husband’s new world of séances and “readings”—and fears he’ll find out some of her own secrets. Lush evocation of post-World War I Scotland and the frenzies of Jazz Age society. B PLUS
"Tokarczuk is wrestling with the biggest philosophical themes: the purpose of life on earth, the nature of religion, the possibility of redemption, the fraught and terrible history of eastern European Jewry."
A Nobel-Prize-winning bacteriologist, Jeremy Stone, urges the president to approve an extraterrestrial decontamination facility to sterilize returning astronauts, satellites, and spacecraft that might carry an "unknown biologic agent."
LOVE, HEARTBREAK, AND LOSS are the cornerstones of this elegantly constructed novel that captures the power of connection and the pain of isolation. Sex is a constant presence in the book, but evocations of food and friendship hit even harder. A MINUS
Anyone got any recommendations for fantasy novels? I was a big fan of Percy Jackson when I was younger and more recently read Mistborn and really liked it, and am interested in finding something similar.
SENSATIONAL WILD-WEST DETECTIVE yarn features the “Holmes On the Range” brothers—a pair of cowboys turned sleuths—guarding a fossil dig in Wyoming with trouble not far behind. Brilliant return of these colorful characters in a sharp, twisty plot. A MINUS
Would it be acceptable in kbin etiquette to add a tag in at least one thread in a magazine I created, and when talking about stuff in other places that touch the same topic, I use the same tag there as well to "promote" the existence of the magazine?
@Damaskox The magazine tags work in a way that automatically adds content to it that someone has tagged, for example, on Mastodon. The magazine's name is automatically a tag. I've seen comments on this matter, and I'll be addressing it soon to improve the mechanism and provide a detailed description of its operation in the admin panel. So, for example, all posts tagged #books on the microblog will be included in the magazine "books," but you can add a tag like #novels in the panel if you want those tags to be included as well.
On The Road, by Jack Kerouac. It’s the late 40’s, and you are a young man trying to dig America and its many people and pick up chicks, so you spend a lot of time trying to meet up with your whacked out best friend by hitchhiking and busing repeatedly across the US, but whether you learn anything is debatable. 3 of 5 library cats 🐈 🐈 🐈.
NEAR-FUTURE NOIR THRILLER, set in a Pacific Northwest sodden with “broken weather,” combines lots of action and a colorful cast of characters for a highly entertaining read. B PLUS
What should I call my son (due at the end of April)
Im having difficulty finding names I like. I need two - three names that roll off the tongue and wouldn’t be out of place with a long hyphenated surname....