July 2017

It’s taken me longer than usual to get this post written, partly because I was in Finland for a week at the start of August. (More on that in my August post.) Anyway, I did the usual books, stories, movies, and music thing in July.

The books

I finished three books in July:

  • The Caped Crusade: Batman and the Rise of Nerd Culture by Glen Weldon
  • Certain Dark Things by Silvia Moreno-Garcia
  • Starflight by Melissa Landers

I really liked the first two books and really did not like the third one. I spent a few hours talking about why I didn’t like it at my monthly book club, but for here, let’s just say that I definitely won’t be reading the sequel.

The stories

I’m not entirely sure how many I read. I only have record of 25, but I’m pretty sure I didn’t skip that many days. I did skip some days, though, never on purpose, and I hope to get better about that as the year continues. Anyway, of the 25, these were my favorites:

  • “Dipso and the Crow” by Rich Larson (Mythic Delirium)
  • “An Unearned Death” by Marissa Lingen (F&SF)
  • “Texts from the Ghost War” by Alex Yuschik (Escape Pod)
  • “I Built This City for You” by Cassandra Khaw (Uncanny)
  • “When Dooryards First in the Lilac Bloomed” by B. Morris Allen (Lackington’s)
  • “That Game We Played During the War” by Carrie Vaughn (Escape Pod, orig. Tor.com)
  • “The Joy of Baking” by Holly Lyn Walrath (Luna Station Quarterly)
  • “Daddy’s Girl” by Jennifer R. Donohue (Syntax & Salt)
  • “Flowers for the Moon” by Clio Yun-Su Davis (Luna Station Quarterly)
  • “The Bridgegroom” by Bo Balder (Clarkesworld)

The movies

I watched 15 of ’em in July.

  • The Belko Experiment:

  • Heartburn:

  • Okja:

  • Johnny Handsome:

  • The LEGO Batman Movie:

  • Spider-Man: Homecoming:

  • Baby Driver:

  • The Lost City of Z:

  • Kong: Skull Island:

  • Certain Women:

  • Dunkirk:

  • The Spirit:

  • Dreamscape:

  • Free Fire:

  • Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets:

The music

I discovered quite a bit more of it in July than in recent months. A lot of listening through my backlog of All Songs Considered podcasts, among other things.