Gav Reads

A Web Log of Reading

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Sunday Summary: 28th Sept 25 Edition

Womble from Runalong The Shelves has been doing a “Wombling Along” post for the last few weeks, highlighting reviews and other articles that caught their attention over the past week.

This is mostly going to be about books and book-ish things that have come to my attention — and possibly serve as my own public bookmarking system.

Let’s start with this stack of… I’m genuinely not sure what to call it… books?

A stack of books that contains: 1. Direct Descendant – Tanya Huff 2. Valid – Chris Bergeron 3. Seascape – Benjamin Wood 4. The Undead Complex – Courtney Smyth 5. The Two Lies of Faven Sythe – Megan E. O’Keefe 6. Of Monsters and Mainframes – Barbara Truelove 7. The Incandescent – Emily Tesh 8. Isabella Nagg and the Pot of Basil – Oliver Darkshire 9. A Song of Legends Lost – M.H. Ayinde 10. A Granite Silence – Nina Allan 11. Hammajang Luck – Makana Yamamoto 12. The Starving Saints – Caitlin Starling 13. Zofia Nowak’s Book of Superhero Detecting – Piotr Cieplak 14. The Listeners – Maggie Stiefvater

It was inspired by Roseanna Pendlebury

Thinking about the things I would love to have read by the end of the year, and pulling together a few piles to drawn from as an aspirational to do list.I will not read all of these. I mean, I possibly theoretically could. But I doubt it. They're just the ones I really want to get in, if I can.

— Roseanna Pendlebury (@chloroformtea.bsky.social) 2025-09-22T12:44:56.787Z

and then Niall Harrison

Right then, excluding review copies, here's my pile of aspiration/despair.

— Niall Harrison (@niallharrison.bsky.social) 2025-09-22T18:31:44.781Z

I badged mine as “the stack of books it would be nice to have read by the end of the year.” I added three caveats:

But since I’ve made the pile with the intention of prompting myself to read them, I’ve started with The Listeners by Maggie Stiefvater. One chapter in, I’m intrigued—but also wondering why I haven’t heard much about it from others.

I haven’t reviewed my recent reads:

  • The Last Hour Between Worlds (The Echo Archives #1) by Melissa Caruso [2024]
  • Artificial Condition (The Murderbot Diaries #2) by Martha Wells [2017]
  • The Grimoire Grammar School Parent Teacher Association by Caitlin Rozakis [2025]

If I get the time, a joint review of The Last Hour Between Worlds and The Grimoire Grammar School Parent Teacher Association might be fun. Both are excellent, and both explore parenting in a fantasy setting—though in very different ways. Each had great twists and turns, and both had me emotionally gripped. I highly recommend them.

And if you’re looking for something cosy in an SF setting, The Murderbot Diaries is turning into just that. Nice to see that Martha Wells has the adventures of Murderbot well under control.

It’s October this week. The clock is ticking to get my reading in before the World Fantasy Convention 2025 announces the various award winners. I’m seriously going to need to weave in some novellas alongside the anthologies.

The issue I’m having with Heartwood is that all the stories centre on the mythos at the heart of the wood—and speeding through them would do them a disservice.

I’m sure I’ll figure something out.

The dive into my BookTok bookmarks is going to have to wait until next week.

This week’s Wombling along contains:

  • A review of Network Effect by Martha Wells, which I’m going to avoid until I’ve got to it myself.
  • A takedown of The End of the World As We Know It: New Tales of Stephen King’s The Stand. I read the last paragraph, as I still hope to finish The Stand and then read the anthology.
  • More praise for Uncertain Sons and Other Stories by Thomas Ha
  • An older, very serious discussion on the absolute canon to read
  • And so much more!

Next week, I may wade into “what’s a reviewer for?”—as that was today’s hot topic on Bluesky.

Until then, Happy Reading!

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