The Cruise of the Snark, Penguin Classics edition

Jack London

Introduction and notes by R.D. Madison

An attempted sail around the world

In 1893 and 1895, Joshua Slocum, an experienced mariner, refitted the derelict sloop Spray. In between 1895 and 1898, he sailed the Spray around the world, alone. On the way he gave lectures with slides. He published his journals in 1900 as Sailing Alone around the World. He was the first, but not the last. It is a feat that has been repeated many times since, and a challenge that experienced sailors still like to take on. Obviously, it is not the feat in the 21st century that it was at the end of the 19th. Modern sailors, even if they intend not to use them, have such modern conveniences as Global Positioning, radios, and even satellite phones. Sailing vessels have not stood still either.

In his heart of hearts, London identified as a sailor. He grew up on or hear the San Francisco Bay. At the age of 13 he bought out an Oyster Pirate and earned a living as a pirate on the Bay. After wrecking the Razzle-Dazzle, he switched sides and joined the California Fish Patrol. Still a teenager he signed on the sealing schooner Sophie Sutherland as an Able Seaman and sailed with her to Japan. He did not merit the title of Able Seaman when he signed on, but by the time he returned he did.

After that he had more adventures, including secondary school and a year at the University of California Berkeley. In 1897 (age 21) he traveled to Alaska in the Klondike gold rush. London was one of the few prospectors to make a financial success of the gold rush -- not as a gold miner, but as an author. His best-known works (The Call of the Wild, White Fang, and To Build a Fire) are derived from that time. He became wealthy by selling books and stories. His most famous story of the sea, The Sea Wolf, came later.

Slocum inspired Jack London to sail around the world. To attempt to sail around the world, I should say. The Cruise of the Snark is his account of that attempt. The building of The Snark began in San Francisco in 1906. London tells us that "The morning her iron keel was to be cast was the morning of the great earthquake." (In fact, we owe one of the best accounts of the quake of 1906 to London.) San Francisco was cast into anarchy in the aftermath, and it was impossible to complete the Snark there. Instead, he sailed "the shell of her" to Hawaii, to be completed there.

London did not sail alone. With him were his wife Charmian and a small crew. I believe with London and Charmian they totaled half a dozen. Hawaii and various South Sea islands are described in Idyllic terms, until the Solomon Islands. There London became embroiled in fights with indigenous peoples. (I don't entirely understand how that came about.) Also, every member of the crew became seriously ill with Solomon Island sores, yaws, and fevers.

London became too sick to continue the cruise of the Snark. He and Charmian traveled to Australia by commercial steamer where he was treated but not cured. They returned home to California (again, by steamer) in 1911, and he claims that California cured him. Given that he died of kidney failure in 1916, there is some room to doubt that this cure was complete.

The Cruise of the Snark is far from London's best work. But if you want to understand the man, this and John Barleycorn: Alcoholic Memoirs are essential reading.

This Penguin Classics edition is introduced and annotated by R.D. Madison. It puzzles me that anyone thought it a good idea to put The Cruise of the Snark in the hands of an editor who clearly despises London. Madison goes so far as to admit that The Call of the Wild is a rather good novel, but no further.

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Goodreads review

The Lion’s Tusk

Robert Jackson Bennett

Ana solves a cold case

If I didn't care about being fair to fictional characters, I would say that Robert Jackson Bennett's Ana and Din mysteries are the latest in a long line of series that pair a genius with a doofus. The most famous such pairing is Sherlock Holmes and John Watson. I would also include Jeeves and Bertie Wooster, and (most relevant) Nero Wolfe and Archie Goodwin. I call this unfair to characters because neither Watson nor Bertie nor Archie deserves the title of doofus -- they're all clever and capable in their diverse ways. (Also, Holmes is not a genius -- he is merely a doofus who has the author on his side.)

Now, the genius tends to get frustrated with what he (always he, except in the case of our Ana) sees as the lack of discernment displayed by the doofus telling his story. Thus we get a couple stories told from the point of view of Holmes and one told from the point of view of Jeeves. Wolfe, I believe, never made this particular mistake.

Because it IS a mistake. Those stories just don't work. The Voice of the Doofus (that sounds like the title of a mystery -- "The Case of the Doofus Voice") is essential to the stories and to making them work. I'm not claiming that this is a universal law, but only that it is one to which I have not found an exception.

And, alas, The Lion’s Tusk is not it. On a carriage ride through the sticks, where she has no access to a library Ana is bored and entertains herself (and harasses Din) by reciting the details of a murder that took place long ago, and solving it. It's an OK murder mystery, not great. It IS a good fit to the Empire of Khanum.

I will also echo the complaint of CC, who writes in a very brief review "that's not Ana's voice". No, it's not. Well-spotted, @CC.

This is a short story, 38 pages in kindle. if you are an Ana and Din completist, you're gonna read it, anyway. I recommend it for that audience.

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Goodreads review

Your Piteous Heart

Seanan McGuire

Tybalt continues his progress towards the Westlands

“Your Piteous Heart” is Seanan McGuire’s August 2026 Patreon reward story. At 26 pages in PDF, this one is slightly shorter than the previous installment, “No More Amazement.” McGuire introduces it as follows:

Well, here we are again, as Tybalt transitions from a relatively peaceful time in Armorica to the next stage of his adventures. We’re moving toward the Westlands and October, but there’s the small matter of a throne to be handled before anything can really change...

Tybalt is having a pretty lousy week, that’s all we’re going to say here. Best read after last month’s story.

Image: Alice and Elsie, right after Elsie came home. Like, two days after Elsie came home. Alice understood that she was meeting her successor, and she was very good about the handoff.

The big event of “No More Amazement” was the death of Tybalt’s adopted changeling daughter Rozenn. Trying to prevent that tragedy, Tybalt incurred the enmity of one Asier, a powerful and dangerous Fae. Consequently, Tybalt is a dangerous man to be around. What’s more, he has nothing left to lose—nothing that he loves, that is.

He is still King of the Court of Silvered Cats, the London Cait Sidhe enclave. That is what McGuire means by “the small matter of a throne”. “Your Piteous Heart” is the story of the severing of that last link.

This one was not, I thought, as good as “No More Amazement.” Despite its name, “No More Amazement” was less predictable. “Your Piteous Heart” simply does (competently!) what needs to be done to move the story forward in the obvious way.

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Machine

Elizabeth Bear

A question of faith

Machine is the second novel in Elizabeth Bear's White Space trilogy, which is a finalist for the 2026 Best Series Hugo. I read the first novel, Ancestral Night because of the Hugo nomination. I read this one because Ancestral Night was good, and I will go on to read The Folded Sky because Machine was also good.

Ancestral Night and Machine share a world. They take place in a galactic civilization/government called the Synarche, long after civilization on Earth barely survived a near apocalypse. They worked out ways to live together without destroying each other or their world. When the people of Earth went out into the stars, they discovered that many other species had run into similar problems and had found similar solutions. The Synarche is the civilization based on those solutions.

Brokllyn Jens is a medical doctor, a specialist in Emergency medicine and rescue. She jumps out of perfectly good spaceships onto failing and/or broken ones to get people out and save them. She herself suffers from neuralgia. She has lived her life in constant pain, although Core General, the central hospital of the Synarche, was able to substantially relieve that. She lives in a powered prosthesis, her Exo, that helps her move and makes her more comfortable.

Unlike many future civilizations in Science Fiction, the Synarche is not post-religious. Many of its members follow religions such as Roman Catholicism. Lynn has occasional discussions about faith with religious friends and co-workers. She is not herself religious. She does, however, have an almost religious faith in the Synarche and especially in Core General, the hospital that saved her. Without spoiling I can't say a lot more, but the central theme of the novel is what happens a person like Llyn when her faith is tested.

Like Ancestral Night, Machine is big-think space opera. It was good. A bit of a slog at times, I have to admit, but worth it.

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Goodreads review

Spider-man: Brand New Day

directed by Destin Daniel Cretton

An emotionally damaging Spider-man movie

I did not think last Saturday that within seven days I would see two movies starring Tom Holland and Jon Bernthal and Zendaya. I did not think that the Superhero movie directed by someone I had never heard of (this is to be understood as a statement of my ignorance of show business, not a knock on Cretton) would be deeper and more emotionally damaging than the movie based on one of the most famous of classical sources directed by a man so famous that even I know his name: Christopher Nolan.

I am not running down Nolan’s Odyssey, which in fact I liked a lot. I tell you therefore with considerable surprise that in my opinion Cretton’s Spider-man: Brand New Day is a better film than Nolan’s Odyssey.

It’s a difficult film to review, because there are so many surprises. Almost anything I tell you will be a spoiler. I will therefore begin with some spoiler-free glittering generalities. I’ll continue the review below the picture of Jon Bernthal I have inserted as a spoiler space. There will be some spoilers down there.

At the end of Spider-man: No Way Home our hero Peter had, with an assist from Doctor Strange, who really ought to have known better, screwed up his own neck of the multiverse in a disastrous and not easily reversible way that was going to make it a dangerous place for Peter himself and for any friends of his. Peter then asks Strange to perform a spell that will erase Peter’s name from all records and memories. That means that, post-spell, neither Peter’s best friend Ned nor his lover MJ know him.

Ned and MJ go off to MIT, their dream school. (It’s a thing worth noting that the Marvel Cinematic Universe has its own Hogwarts. But the magic school of the MCU is one that really exists in our branch of the multiverse: the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. As one who spent some years studying at MIT, I approve.) Meanwhile Peter goes back to New York City. He spends the next four years Spider-manning around New York, cleaning up the city. In the process he has become famous and well-loved—by the populace of New York, that is. He is still alone without any real friends.

Now, MIT is inconveniently located some 200 miles from New York City, the beating heart of the MCU. To get Ned and MJ back to the center of All Things MCU, Cretton waits until they have graduated from MIT.

And that’s where we start. Peter crashes a house-warming party when they move into the new apartment they share. (MJ and Ned’s friendship remains platonic.) Peter has emotions.

At the same time, a new criminal is messing up his New York. Since it is hinted in the trailer, I think I can mention without spoiling that the new danger in the city is a person or thing that can possess ordinary people and direct their actions.

The film as a whole had a very serious feel. Although it has humorous moments and made me laugh out loud at points, it was not the light-hearted story previous Spider-man films had prepared me for. (The darker tone is faithful to the source material, Steve Ditko and Stan Lee’s comics.) I called it emotionally damaging in my title, because that’s how it felt to me. Not everyone gets out whole.

In fact, I felt that this new Spider-man film borrowed its tone and emotional weight from Marvel Tv series, especially Daredevil, The Defenders, and The Punisher.

Spoilers below

There are two main plot lines in the film. The first is Peter’s attempt to deal with the criminal telepath. Huge spoiler number 1: it is Jean Grey, of X-Men fame. Jean Grey is probably the most powerful of the mutants, having telepathic and telekinetic powers. She gets into Peter’s head enough to know about him and MJ, and she threatens MJ.

Plot line 2, of course, is Peter and MJ’s relationship. Peter comes to MJ as Spider-man and takes her away to keep her safe. It is at this point that He recruits Frank Castle, AKA the Punisher, to help him keep MJ safe. And MJ learns that Spider-man is Peter Parker, a name she doesn’t know, and learns that he loved her and she him in another version of this world.

If you know the X-Men, you know that Jean Grey is most typically on the side of the good guys, at least when she has control of herself. Like Peter, Jean Grey is a damaged personality. Peter forms a sort of friendship with her.

I expect Peter and Jean’s friendship to be a major point of future Spider-man films.

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Selected Poems (Penguin Modern Classics)

William Yeats

A quintessentially Irish poet

I knew before I read Selected Poems (Penguin Modern Classics) by WB Yeats that he was one of the most famous poets of Ireland, a nation that takes pride in its poets. I did not know the extent to which his Irish identity was at the heart of his poetry. Of course, since this is but a selection of Yeats's poetry, it is possible that I am deceived by editor Timothy Webb's choice of poems. but I do not think so.

The two poems of Yeats's that I knew best before I read this collection were The Song of Wandering Aengus (one of my all-time-favorite poems) and The Second Coming. Neither of these poems is obviously Irish. (Unless, that is, you happen to know that Aengus is the Irish God of Love -- I did not, when I first heard this poem, and, trust me, it is by no means necessary to know that to appreciate its power and beauty.)

From The Wanderings of Oisin, an epic retelling of one of Ireland's central pre-Christian legends, to poems about Irish men who fought with Britain in the First World War to poems inspired by the disastrous Easter rebellion of 1916, Irish nationalism is prominent. Yeats was not initially in favor of Ireland's separation from England, but events changed him.

Many of these poems reflect Yeats's mysticism, but he also writes about life and love. Most of his love poems were inspired by his failed passion for Maud Gonne, a famed Irish beauty and revolutionary. Yeats's love poetry is bold and strong, with none of the preciousness and infantilization of many male poets of his era.

As usual for a Penguin Classics edition, this one has extensive notes -- literally a quarter of the book, and I read them all. Webb also wrote a 40-page introduction. After reading this book, I know who and what Yeats was much better than before.

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Goodreads review

Here are the 2025 Hugo poetry finalists ordered from best to not so great, according to my tastes/

★★★★★ Care for Lightning, by Mari Ness

Mari Ness’s “Care for Lightning was published in Uncanny Magazine Issue 62. It is my favorite of this year’s poetry finalists. It’s a poem about Hera, the goddess who was Zeus’s long-suffering consort. Zeus is of course the god who controls lightning, and that power made him chief of of the Olympian gods. Here is the final verse:

Nah, I haven’t forgotten who
I’m speaking to. Don’t need to see
those scars. Bitch got stuff done —
that’s what I say. You know —
you know — oh, gods you know —
what power does to all of us.
Gonna take care of this lightning now.

I am a bit puzzled by this, because in fact I don’t know who the poet is speaking to. I wish I did.

★★★★☆ The Mourning Robot, by Angela Liu

Another entry from Uncanny, Issue 66. You can find it here. For me this poem evoked the concept of “professional mourners,” a phrase I have read many a time in fiction, and which apparently describes a real thing. “The Mourning Robot” appeared to me to describe robots constructed to mourn the dead, sincerely. It’s brief: only 20 short lines.

I liked this a lot.

★★★★☆ The World to Come, by Jennifer Hudak

“The World to Come” is another contribution from Strange Horizons, and can be found here—it was originally published 22-Dec-2025. This poem imagines resurrection, occurring the way that Jewish tradition says it will. It is described from the point of view of a person suffering resurrection. I choose the word “suffering” advisedly.

It’s an “I never thought of that” poem. This was clever. If you long for immortality, this poem might convince you to reconsider.

★★★☆☆ Hex Supply Customer Support Log by Elis Montgomery

This poem purports to be a conversation on the Customer support line of Hex Supply, a mail-order business that sells supplies for witches. It appeared in Strange Horizons 25-Aug-2025 and can be read here., It is both familiar and strange. The caller accuses the support system of being a bot, an AI, but it claims to be a real witch.

Montgomery was obviously aiming for humor (not just humor, but that’s a part of it), and for me it didn’t really land.

★★★☆☆ How to Become a Sea Witch, by Theodora Goss

The Orange & Bee

How to become a sea witch

Here at The Orange & Bee, we delight in sharing fairy-tale poetry with our readers. Theodora Goss is well-known for her work in this domain, as evidenced by her Mythopoeic Award (for Snow White learns witchcraft) and her two Rhysling awards (for ‘Rose child’ and ‘Octavia is lost in the hall of masks’). Today, we are thrilled to share Theodora Goss’s ori…

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a year ago · 42 likes · 2 comments · The Orange & Bee and Theodora Goss

“How to Become a Sea Witch” appeared in the substack publication The Orange and Bee 18-Apr-2025. It describes a metamorphosis from a human to a sea-witch.

★★☆☆☆ Landing: Seattle, by Brandon O’Brien

I don’t know of any place to read “Landing: Seattle” other than the 2026 Hugo finalists packet. This poem was, I believe, composed for the opening ceremony of Seattle Worldcon 2025.

Here, I have a confession to make: I have never attended Worldcon. In fact, I have never attended any convention, except for professional scientific meetings. This poem therefore completely failed to land for me—I haven’t the experience to appreciate it.

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2026 Hugo Awards

Black Holes: The Key to Understanding the Universe

Brian Cox, Jeff Forshaw

Good but demanding popular presentation of the science of Black Holes

If you are like me, the first thing you think on reading the title of Brian Cox and Jeff Forshaw's Black Holes: The Key to Understanding the Universe is "Isn't that subtitle a bit overstated?"

Yes, yes it is. Black Holes is, nevertheless, a very good book.

The first thing I like about it is that it doesn't begin with the usual 4-6 chapters intended to bring the ignorant reader up to speed on the physics revolution of the early twentieth century. If you've read a lot of popular physics book, you know what I mean. Instead of this one-size-fits-all approach, Cox and Forshaw explain things as they need them.

We begin with an introduction to Einstein's theory of gravity. We move fairly quickly to what a black hole looks like in general relativity. Somewhere in there Penrose diagrams, used throughout the book, are introduced. We then move to Hawking radiation, black hole thermodynamics, and the black hole information paradox. At around this point the holographic principle is introduced. We end with speculation that the universe is a natural quantum computer and that space and time and gravity may be computationally generated. (I will note here that Cox and Forshaw are not joining in the speculation that we live in a simulated reality -- they are clear about that.)

I enjoyed this a lot and found it stimulating and enlightening. However, I will state as a warning to other readers that it was not easy going, and I have a PhD in Applied Mathematics. One thing I liked is that Cox and Forshaw work very hard not to dumb things down to the point of getting the physics wrong.

As an example, Black Holes is one of the few popular physics books I have read that accurately explains entropy. Most pop phys books will tell you that entropy is disorder. This is either vacuous or completely wrong, depending on how you define "disorder." Entropy is a measure of ignorance. Specifically, the entropy of a physical system is the amount you don't know about it. Yes, that is weird and puzzling in all kinds of ways. But it has the advantage of being correct.

If I have a complaint about Black Holes, it is that much of it is speculative. Speculation is fine, but Cox and Forshaw don't carefully police the border between knowledge and speculation. I felt, especially towards the end, that they very nearly presented as true things that no one really knows for sure.

If you're willing to work hard at understanding physics and math, and to approach ideas in the right spirit of skepticism, Black Holes is a very good book.

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Goodreads review

The Odyssey

directed by Christopher Nolan

It’s good!

Yesterday morning I refrained from fluids, because I am 70 years old, and with age comes wisdom (this is not true) and decreased bladder control (this is), and Nolan’s Odyssey is 173 min long.

The first thing I’ll say is that it’s a great film. You will be entertained. I am not one of those sad critics who think it somehow lowers a work of art to be entertaining. When I say Nolan’s Odyssey is entertaining, I mean it as praise.

The screenplay does an excellent job of portraying Odysseus as intelligent, not just by saying he is. but by showing him being smarter than the people around him. Early on in the film he is smarter in small ways, but late in the film his understanding is shown as deeper than mere craft.

The action sequences are well done. I was particularly struck by a scene early on in which, after being brought inside the walls of Troy inside the wooden horse, the Achaeans sneak out and fight their way to the gate to open it to Agamemnon’s army. (This, by the way, is barely mentioned in Homer’s Odyssey—the story of the Trojan horse as everyone knows it comes to us mostly from Virgil’s Aeneid.) That was an exciting scene.

You will see a lot of familiar faces. Aside from his own talent, Nolan has a special advantage over other directors: great actors are eager to sign on to a project of his. I won’t mention all the most famous actors and actresses in the leading roles—you can easily find them listed elsewhere, but I will mention two less well-known actors who surprised me. Jon Bernthal portrays Menelaus with a gravitas that took me by surprise, as in the original Odyssey Menelaus is the lightweight kid brother of the Big Man Agamemnon. I couldn’t at first place Bernthal—I knew his was a familiar face, but it wasn’t until I got home and looked him up that I figured out Menelaus was Frank Castle, the Punisher, from Marvel TV. The other actor who impressed me was Robert Pattinson as Antinous, the chief of Penelope’s suitors, and thus the chief Bad Guy. He had that “lean and hungry look”—yes, I am aware that I am scrambling my classical references—of a covetous and unprincipled man.

Much has been made of the racial diversity of the characters. This, I thought, was a good thing. It leant the film verisimilitude. My (strictly unprofessional) understanding of the history of the ancient Greeks at war is that their armies were often eclectic, composed of men from not only Greece, but also Asia Minor, Persia, Egypt, Syria, Ethiopia, and even occasionally northern Europe.

So, in summary, it’s good. If not entirely faithful to the moods and philosophy of the original, it is a worthy translation to new times and a new medium.

See it.

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A Parade of Horribles

Matt Dinniman

The pen-penultimate novel

A Parade of Horribles is novel 8 in Matt Dinniman‘s Dungeon Crawler Carl series. It is also, I believe, the third-to-last novel, as indicated by this sentence in an Author’s note entitled “Here we are yet again.”

I’m already hard at work for Dungeon Crawler Carl’s penultimate book, and I don’t want it to end.

Thus we can be reassured that Dinniman has a plan to end this thing. Like him, I don’t particularly want it to end, but after seeing George R.R. Martin die on the job, unable to finish A Song of Ice and Fire, I consider that finishing is preferable to the alternative.

Like all of them, this installment is an impossible-to-summarize firehose of apparent chaos masking an orderly progression toward a carefully planned conclusion. Well, of course I won’t KNOW that until I see this hypothesized “carefully planned conclusion,” but at this point Dinniman has earned my confidence.

In this one we get through two floors of the dungeon, 10 and 11. We have reached the point where the mad AI running the game is totally in control and has gone full nihilist. It wants to die, but first its job is to eliminate (that means “kill” in most but not quite all cases) the crawlers. Once the crawlers are gone the Ascendancy Game begins. In past dungeons the Ascendancy Game has been a kind of boring game show played by the wealthy and powerful cosplaying as Gods. Carl has other ideas, of course.

Floor ten is designed to kill off a whole lot of crawlers. We begin it with 5501 of them. It’s a series of seven road races, and is so arranged that one can survive only by eliminating (see above vocabulary note) almost all the competing crawlers. I don’t think it’s spoiling to tell you that only 203 make it to the eleventh. Most of those take deals, so the population that starts the eleventh floor is even smaller. The eleventh floor is a literal parade. It is only three hours and not especially dangerous as the dungeon goes, but of course the dungeon is a super-dangerous place and we can always anticipate a boss battle at the end of each floor.

That boss battle takes an unexpected turn that totally took me by surprise. Yet when it happened, it made perfect sense. It was, in retrospect, obvious that Dinniman had thought this out and carefully laid the groundwork for it to happen.

I am, let me say, blown away with the artistry of the series. It’s wacky and truly funny and one of the best-plotted things I’ve ever read, with distinct characters you can love or hate or not be quite sure how you feel about. It’s also politically incorrect, not to mention occasionally wildly offensive. I will certainly keep reading.

I know a bunch of people who hate, hate, HATE DCC, and I have no difficulty understanding why. They are not wrong, of course. If you read something and you hate it, then you hate it. No one can tell you how you feel.. Others may have a different or even totally opposite reaction. They, too, are right about how it makes them feel.

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A Parade of Horribles, by Matt Dinniman

Goodreads review

Artificial Condition

Martha Wells

narrated by Kevin R Free

** spoiler alert ** Murderbot contends with affection

Murderbot calls Itself that because some four years ago It went wild and murdered a whole bunch of humans. Ostensibly. Supposedly. But Its memories have been erased. Not completely -- the memories in Its inorganic parts were erased. But the memories in Its organic parts can't be erased. And it is full of doubt about whether the mass murder actually happened, and if it did, whether Its own role was as It has been told. So It is seeking the place where the murders are supposed to have happened.

It does this by hitching rides on freighters piloted by bots. As payment for transport, It offers its many many hours of downloaded media. One of these bot-piloted freighters is not really a freighter at all, but a university research vessel. Its brain is far more powerful than Murderbot's own. It is passive-aggressive and manipulative. For this reason Murderbot calls it ART (Asshole Research Transport). Later in the series ART, whose real name is Perihelion, will become one of the most important characters and Murderbot's Best Friend.

Once at RaviHydral, a station that Murderbot and ART together determine was the site of the mass murder event, Murderbot is trying to pass as a human. To explore the station, It needs an official reason to be there. It therefore contracts to provide security for a trio of kids who are in the process of getting cheated by an unscrupulous company, Tlacey Excavations. Well, "kids" is not exactly accurate. They're young tech workers, and they are very, very naïve. Murderbot has Its hands full keeping them alive, Tlacey has no intention of paying for the tech it stole from the not-kids and will happily kill them to shut them up.

The real thrust of the story, thus, is Murderbot forming relationships with other persons: ART and the not-kids.

I am really not enchanted with Kevin R. Free's performance. In my review of the All Systems Red audiobook I kind of gave him a pass because I judged the job impossible. I am, at this point, less inclined to do that. Those of us who listen to a lot of audiobooks, know the magic a really, really good narrator can produce. Free is not making magic here.

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Goodreads review

All Systems Red

Martha Wells

Narrated by Kevin R Free

This is not the voice I'm looking for

I have read every extant Murderbot story (novels, novellas, and one short story) with pleasure, and All Systems Red may be my favorite.

What I love about Murderbot is Murderbot's voice. By that I do not mean how It sounds when It speaks. What I mean is the emotional tone. It's familiar, because it is the same voice I hear in my skull when I think: introverted, fond of TV and movies, and eager to do absolutely anything other than deal with humans face-to-face.

The audiobook was always destined to be a challenge. I have given narrator Kevin R. Free an impossible job here. ANY real voice would have been unsatisfactory. And so it was. I don't want to critique any specific aspect of Free's performance, because that is not what my dissatisfaction is about. It is about an actual physical human voice speaking Murderbot's silent thoughts.

Thus, I don't think it's really fair to rate the audiobook based on my subjective enjoyment. I'm going to stick with the four-star rating for the eBook.

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Goodreads review

The Smallest of Joys

Diane Shiffer

Not my kind of book

Diane Shiffer is someone I am personally close to. In fact, I received my copy of The Smallest of Joys: How to Create Your Own Magic, Let Your Best Be Enough & Find Contentment Exactly as You Are from her hands. I therefore will not be rating it.

She warned me when she gave it to me that it would not be my kind of book, She was right about that. It’s not that I disagree with anything substantive that she has to say. In general terms, I feel the same way about joy as she does. Her principles of individuality and self-care resonate. The problem though, is that general principles do not a satisfying book or a tiktok channel make. Shiffer knows this, of course. She illustrates her principles with lots and lots of examples.

And that is where the book failed to satisfy me. Here’s an example

But you and I both know that things do not have to be big or showy or expensive to be beautiful, my dear. The battered old ornaments, crafted and glued by tiny hands, are more precious than anything new or trendy. Paper chains, cranberry garlands, cut-out snowflakes . . . do those ever really go out of style? Even the simple, inexpensive things are lovely at Christmas. The plain old things still bring joy. The simple things are plenty. The simple things are more than enough.

Shiffer‘s joy is supported by things, material things, objects. Indeed, her short-form videos are largely concerned with the “vintage” objects she loves. She loves things, old things. Although she is the opposite of what is commonly understood by the adjective “materialistic,” she cares deeply for things.

I, myself, don’t much care about things. For me beauty and joy come from ideas. (For instance, unlike so many of you, I don’t care about the smell or feel of a paper book. For me a book is the words and pictures it contains. Whether they appear on paper or a screen is literally immaterial to me.) Thus, while I agree with every major value Shiffer shares, her examples largely fail to reach me.

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The Smallest of Joys on Amazon

Goodreads review

No More Amazement

Seanan McGuire

“No More Amazement” is Seanan McGuire’s July 2026 Patreon reward story. It’s 41 pages in PDF, so a novelette or novella. She introduces it as follows:

(Image: A caliby--calico/tabby--Maine Coon with clear green eyes, lounging on an organ duvet with a dino bone-patterned blanket behind her, a copy of INKPOT GODS leaned up against her to show you how big she is. She looks comfortable.)

I admit, I was delaying our return to the Tybalt timeline because, as you may have noticed, there are a lot of people mentioned there who never appear in the modern day. And that sort of implies that a lot of these people do not make it to the modern day. We’re at the point where he needs to move if he wants to remain compliant with the future timeline, and as a consequence, I put it off until enough people had asked that I couldn’t do it anymore.

So this is our return to Tybalt in the past, picking up some time after “Fanes That Lie.” It is a sad story, as a warning, but it is a necessary story, in terms of moving things forward into the distant and waiting future.

Just remember, he has joy coming for him. Just not yet.

(TW: Illness, child death.)

Despite the copy of Inkpot Gods in the picture, the story is unrelated to McGuire’s Alchemical Journeys series. It is about Tybalt, one of the main characters in her October Daye series. Tybalt will eventually become Toby’s husband and the father of her second child. (“Toby” is the nickname by which most people know October Daye, the hero of the series.) But, in an age mismatch for the record books, Tybalt is older than Toby by many centuries.

For some years now McGuire has been, off and on, filling us in on Tybalt’s background prior to his move to the San Francisco Bay Area where he will eventually meet Toby. Most of the people Tybalt knew in those long ago days have stopped their dancing. Thus, as she suggests in her introduction, getting from there to here will involve some tragedy. (The title, “No more amazement,” is quoted from The Tempest—I believe all titles in the October Daye series are Shakespeare quotes.)

This is good. I can’t say more about the plot without spoiling, and in fact McGuire’s introduction already released the biggest cat. (Pun totally intended.) As I mentioned in my review of Inkpot Gods, McGuire has been off her best for the last few years, but with Inkpot Gods and this novella, I feel we have the old Seanan back.

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“No More Amazement,” on Patreon

Seanan McGuire’s Patreon

Inkpot Gods

Seanan McGuire

A return to form

Inkpot Gods is the fourth novel in Seanan McGuire‘s Alchemical Journeys series. The first of these, Middlegame, was, I thought, one of the very best of McGuire‘s many, many books. From me that is a big statement, since I’m an avid fan of hers. Books 2 and 3, Seasonal Fears and Tidal Creatures, were much less impressive. Inkpot Gods returns to the subjects and themes of Middlegame. It is not quite as good as that first novel, but it approaches it.

More important, this novel represents, I think, a return to form for McGuire. Those of us who subscribe to her Patreon know that she has gone through some troubles in the last several years. (See her 20-Jun-2024 post for more detail.) It has shown in her output -- not the quantity -- I don’t think McGuire can live and stop writing -- but in the quality. Her most recent output has been repetitive and verbose, marred by a tendency to unnecessarily explain EVERYTHING. (She knows better, honestly.)

In Inkpot Gods, and also in “No More Amazement,” her 1-Jul-2026 Patreon novella (which I will presently review) she reads like the old Seanan, and I am so glad to have her back!

Inkpot Gods focuses on the Alchemical foundations of Middlegame. We go back to the 19th century and Asphodel Deborah Baker, the central figure in American Alchemy in the world-building of Alchemical Journeys. But these bits of 19th century lore are interspersed with a story of the 21st century characters we have met in the first three novels. It’s a gritty, dangerous story: bad things happen to good people. Not everything is set right.

She hints in her acknowledgements that this is nearly, but not quite, the end of the series.

We’ve almost reached the Impossible City at this point, and I can show you a shortcut, if you like. Just take my hand, close your eyes, and trust me. I know the way.

No, I don’t know what that means either, beyond being a hint that there’s another, probably last book to come.

I will certainly read it.

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Inkpot Gods on Amazon

Goodreads review

Arrow

Created by Greg Berlanti, Marc Guggenheim, and Andrew Kreisberg

Pretty actor-like performers

I’m going to try to keep this short, since I don’t enjoy writing negative reviews.

A month or so ago I watched Season 2 (currently the last released) of Daredevil Born Again—an excellent TV show, in my opinion. That finished, I went on to the next Marvel TV show that I hadn’t yet seen, Spider-Noir, which was considerably less impressive. Spider-Noir is on Prime Video, and when I finished it, Prime recommended Arrow. I was pleased to see that Arrow had run for eight seasons. I took that as a good sign, first, because no show runs for eight seasons unless a lot of people enjoy it, and second because I thought it would keep me entertained for a long time. I am writing this review after watching the entire first season. I don’t intend to watch any more.

The first thing that struck me about Arrow, in contrast to Marvel TV shows, was that the stars had clearly been chosen because they were pretty people. Say what you like about Vincent D’Onofrio (who plays Kingpin in Daredevil), he is not a pretty person, not when wearing a fat suit. A very good actor, but not pretty. Nor, in my opinion, is Nicolas Cage, or even Deborah Ann Woll, as she appears in the last episodes of Daredevil Born Again. Charlie Cox (who plays Matt Murdock/Daredevil)), is, I will grant you, a good-looking guy. He’s also one Hell of an actor.

Arrow stars Stephen Arnell as Oliver Queen. He’s a good-looking, buff (and often shirtless), and absurdly carefully groomed man, who apparently calibrates the length of his stubble to the micron. He can’t act. He does occasionally try—you can see him trying—but he just can’t do it. Katie Cassidy as his love interest Laurel Lance is another very pretty person, who shows no real sign of being able to act.

I don’t want to be completely unfair to Arrow—it is not devoid of acting. Some of the minor characters are not bad. I’m thinking particularly of Paul Blackthorne (who plays Laurel’s father Quentin Lance), and Emily Bett Rickards, who plays tech geek Felicity Smoak with understated humor.

But it is 100% clear when you watch Arrow that “pretty” was the thing they were looking for in their actors.

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Arrow on IMDB

2026 Hugo Short Story finalists

Here are the finalists for the 2026 Best Short Story Hugo Award, with my rankings:

1. ★★★☆☆ 10 Visions of the Future; or, Self-Care for the End of Days, Samantha Mills
2. ★★★☆☆ Six People to Revise You, J. R. Dawson
3. ★★★☆☆ Wire Mother, Isabel J. Kim
4. ★★★☆☆ Missing Helen, Tia Tashiro
5. ★★★☆☆ Laser Eyes Ain't Everything, Effie Seiberg
6. ★★☆☆☆ In My Country, Thomas Ha

I apologize: I'm gonna do a half-assed job of reviewing these. It was, IMO, a lack-luster harvest. What I always hope for when I read the Hugo finalists is something that makes me say, "I sure am glad the Hugo nomination process pointed me at that story!" This year, 2026, that happened in the series, novel, novella, and novelette categories. It didn't happened for a short story. (I have not yet read the poetry finalists -- the only remaining category in which I plan to vote.)

I have one complaint for all the short stories: they aren't. Stories that is. They are written English documents that have the form of stories, but not the essence. Everyone knows the famous but unhelpful dictum from Aristotle's Poetics that a story should have a beginning, a middle, and an end (usefully modified by Jean Luc Godard, "not necessarily in that order") Unhelpful though Aristotle is, the point on which he fails to put his finger is a good one: a story has a structure, not just of words, but also of events and emotions. I would summarize it as, "a problem should be resolved."

It's not that that doesn't happen in any of these stories -- it's just that it feels perfunctory, as if that isn't what the story is about. Several of them are more like thinly disguised polemics than stories. I'd put Six People to Revise You, Laser Eyes Ain't Everything, Wire Mother, and probably In My Country in that category. ("Probably" because I didn't understand In My Country.) Missing Helen was more storyish, but it was just not, IMO, a very good story.

10 Visions of the Future; or, Self-Care for the End of Days is a series of ten very short stories about a Lovecraftian end to the world. So there was some story-ness to it, quite possibly more than I understood. Also, it was funny. I chuckled several times.

So, there you have it. Better luck next year!

Goodreads review

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The Millay Illusion

Sarah Pinsker

A magical story with no actual magic

The finalists for the 2026 Best Novelette Hugo Award are:

★★★★☆ Kaiju Agonistes by Scott Lynch
★★★☆☆ Never Eaten Vegetables by H.H. Pak
★★★★☆ Rapport: Friendship, Solidarity, Communion, Empathy, by Martha Wells
★★★☆☆ The Girl That My Mother Is Leaving Me For by Cameron Reed
★★★★★ The Millay Illusion by Sarah Pinsker
★★★★☆ When He Calls Your Name by Catherynne M. Valente

Sarah Pinsker's The Millay Illusion easily tops my ranking for best novelette. It appeared in Uncanny 67 -- Here is a direct link. Some people have pointed out, and I agree 100%, that it is puzzling The Millay Illusion is even eligible for a Hugo at all, for this reason -- it is not Fantasy or Science Fiction or any other type of speculative fiction.

To be sure, the story is all about magic. But it is about the kind of pulling-rabbits-out-of-hats, sawing-ladies-in-two magic that we all know is not true magic, but merely skilled consensual deception. In fact, our first-person narrator, Lottie, who goes by the stage name Johnny Chess, is herself an adept. She makes it clear that Susanna Miller/Millay's tricks are exactly that type of deception. Susanna is merely exceptionally good at it.

But genre policing is dumb and never gets you anywhere useful. If the Hugo Award Committee fell for Pinsker's sleight-of-hand, even while totally aware that they were reading a story about sleight-of-hand, I'm not gonna second guess them. And even less because it's a really good story.

It is set in a time where women could not be stage magicians. They could be props that proper male magicians used in their tricks, but they could not, themselves, openly do magic on stage. Thus Lottie's "Johnny Chess" pseudonym. There's definitely a "backwards and in heels" element to the story. [spoiler1]

So, that's it for the novelettes. Here are my rankings:

1. ★★★★★ The Millay Illusion by Sarah Pinsker
2. ★★★★☆ Rapport: Friendship, Solidarity, Communion, Empathy, by Martha Wells
3. ★★★★☆ Kaiju Agonistes by Scott Lynch
4. ★★★★☆ When He Calls Your Name by Catherynne M. Valente
5. ★★★☆☆ Never Eaten Vegetables by H.H. Pak
6. ★★★☆☆ The Girl That My Mother Is Leaving Me For by Cameron Reed

On to the Short Stories!

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The Millay Illusion in Uncanny Issue Sixty-seven

Goodreads review

The Girl That My Mother Is Leaving Me For

Cameron Reed

Dystopian love story

The finalists for the 2026 Best Novelette Hugo Award are:

★★★★☆ Kaiju Agonistes by Scott Lynch
★★★☆☆ Never Eaten Vegetables by H.H. Pak
★★★★☆ Rapport: Friendship, Solidarity, Communion, Empathy, by Martha Wells
★★★☆☆ The Girl That My Mother Is Leaving Me For by Cameron Reed
☆☆☆☆☆ The Millay Illusion by Sarah Pinsker
★★★★☆ When He Calls Your Name by Catherynne M. Valente

The Girl That My Mother Is Leaving Me For is a love story. It takes place in a future dystopia, in which corporations rule the world (more overtly than they now do). There is cloning in this Brave New World, and custom bodies, and mind transfer from body to body. Of course, things go wrong and it turns into an adventure.

I didn't love it, but I didn't hate it. Three stars seems fair.

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The Girl That My Mother is Leaving Me For on Amazon

Goodreads review

Never Eaten Vegetables

HH Pak

Eventually very good, but a little too late

The finalists for the 2026 Best Novelette Hugo Award are:

★★★★☆ Kaiju Agonistes by Scott Lynch
★★★☆☆ Never Eaten Vegetables by H.H. Pak
★★★★☆ Rapport: Friendship, Solidarity, Communion, Empathy, by Martha Wells
☆☆☆☆☆ The Girl That My Mother Is Leaving Me For by Cameron Reed
☆☆☆☆☆ The Millay Illusion by Sarah Pinsker
★★★★☆ When He Calls Your Name by Catherynne M. Valente

H.H. Pak's Never Eaten Vegetables is a story about an interstellar generation ship whose people face a terrible dilemma. It was published in Clarkesworld Issue 220. Here is a direct link.

The ship is NEV-476, originally meant to stand for "Natal Embryonic Vessel-476". Its cargo is ten thousand fertilized embryos held in stasis. They are to be released from stasis and grow to become babies when the ship arrives at its destination. There's a malfunction, and things become very, very difficult. As a consequence, the ship refuses the name "Natal Embryonic Vessel" and instead says its name is "Never Eaten Vegetables."

The story, as I eventually understood it, was a good one, even a very good one. The problem, though -- the reason for my lackluster rating, was that it took me a long time to understand what the Hell was going on and who these people were. I mean, I get the impulse to set up and preserve the mystery. In fact, I usually expect Speculative Fiction to be confusing, and am disappointed if I understand fully on the first read. But in this case the mystery was so successfully opaqued for so long that I spent about half my reading time completely baffled.

All does eventually become clear. I will probably re-read, and I expect I'll enjoy it more on the second reading. But right now, after just one reading, I am more annoyed than amused. You might call my three-star rating unfair. Indeed, I might call it unfair. But I'm sticking with it for now.

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Never Eaten Vegetables in Clarkesworld Issue 120

Goodreads review