June 2017

June was considerably less eventful than May, although also for various reasons it was also not my favorite month so far this year. I’m just as happy to put that behind me, moving into the summer proper. But for one last look back at June: I read two books (well, one was a novella), read thirty-one short stories (thirty-two if you count that novella), watched seven movies, and listened to some music.

The books

I read two for my book club: All Systems Red by Martha Wells, the first in a planned series of “Murderbot Chronicles” novellas, and Nevernight by Jay Kristoff, which a member of that book club described not inaccurately as “murder-Hogwarts.” I don’t know, I enjoyed them both. I might have liked Wells’ more because it wasn’t a novel — you can forgive its lack of depth for telling a tight and entertaining story — and Kristoff’s less because it’s a planned trilogy and feels like it. (His world-building is very good, but he’s maybe a little too enthralled with it for his own good. (See footnotes. All ten million of them.)

The stories

Favorites from the month included:

  • “Secret Keeper” by Bonnie Jo Stufflebeam (Nightmare)
  • “Water Like Air” by Lora Gray (Flash Fiction Online)
  • “Shape Without Form, Shade Without Color” by Sunny Moraine (Tor.com)
  • “Ad Infinitum” by Kate Heartfield (Daily Science Fiction)
  • “The Three-Tongued Mummy” by E. Catherine Tobler (Apex)
  • “Welcome to Astuna” by Pip Coen (Apex)
  • “eyes I dare not meet in dreams” by Sunny Moraine (Tor.com)
  • “Wendy, Darling” by A.C. Wise (Daily Science Fiction)
  • “Silenced” by Melissa Mead (Daily Science Fiction)
  • “Wave-function collapse” by Filip Wiltgren (Daily Science Fiction)
  • “Nozizwe and Almahdi” by J.R. Dawson (Escape Pod)

The movies

  • Kubo and the Two Strings:

  • 21 Jump Street:

  • Wonder Woman:

  • Charley Varrick:

  • Guardians of the Galaxy 2:

  • The Void:

  • For Your Consideration:

The music