Gav Reads

A Web Log of Reading

Tag: Bluesky

  • 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!

  • Sunday Summary: 21st 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.

    Happy Sunday everyone, I hope you’ve managed to get some reading done this week.

    I kind of did—and kind of didn’t.

    I finished the excellent The Last Hour Between Worlds (The Echo Archives #1) by Melissa Caruso. It sets itself up perfectly for a sequel and absolutely delivered on what I was hoping for. But it also got me thinking about the formula it used to get there.

    That’s definitely more of a me problem than a book problem. Maybe writing a review will help get my thoughts in order. I am going to read the sequel, The Last Soul Among Wolves, at some point in the future—by which I mean, when the paperback drops.

    I got some train time this week and made more inroads into The Devils and I’m up 6% from last week’s update.

    I also picked up Artificial Condition by Martha Wells as my paperback, and I’m enjoying the cosy nature of it.

    As a reminder to me, The Murderbot Diaries chronology is:

    • “Compulsory”
    • All Systems Red [I’ve read this]
    • Artificial Condition
    • Rogue Protocol
    • Exit Strategy
    • “Rapport”
    • “Home”
    • Fugitive Telemetry
    • Network Effect
    • System Collapse

    I’ve just started Heartwood: A Mythago Wood Anthology but from what I’ve read so far the authors are embracing the spirit of the original but putting on their own twists. The bar is now high for the rest of the anthology.

    Did you know that Bluesky now has bookmarks?

    I just counted—I’ve collected 62 in the last two weeks!

    I’m trying to be better about revisiting the bookmarks I’ve saved, periodically going through them and actually using them for their intended purpose: reminding me to check something later.

    Reactor has an article on All the New Horror, Romantasy, and Other SFF Crossover Books Arriving in September 2025, and here are a few that stood out to me:

    1. Moonflow — Bitter Karella (Run For It) *
    2. The Haunting of William Thorn — Ben Alderson (Angry Robot)*
    3. House of Idyll — Delilah S. Dawson (Titan)
    4. Play Nice — Rachel Harrison (TItan)*
    5. The Macabre — Kosoko Jackson (Harper Voyager)
    6. You Weren’t Meant to Be Human — Andrew Joseph White (Daphne Press)
    7. Exiles — Mason Coile, Andrew Pyper (Baskerville)
    8. Veil — Jonathan Janz (Blackstone)
    9. Spread Me — Sarah Gailey (Nightfire) *
    10. Midnight Timetable — Bora Chung, tr. Anton Hur (Dialogue Books)
    11. What Stalks the Deep (Sworn Soldier #3) — T. Kingfisher (Titan) *
    12. The Autumn Springs Retirement Home Massacre — Philip Fracassi (Run for It)

    Apart from the ones marked with a *, I think the rest will have to wait until I get my physical TBR under control… though, by my calculations, I may need to shorten the time it takes me to finish a book from my current 16-day average to… something a lot shorter.

    I do and I don’t like a stat. Added more books to @thestorygraph—my physical TBR is now over 400. Maybe I’ll just do the ’25 releases? Only 48! If I read one every 2.5 days and never sleep again, I could do it? Any bets on me crying on New Year’s Eve, still buried in unread books?

    — @gavreads (@gavreads.co.uk) 2025-09-20T11:57:57.293Z

    The author & editor, Trip Galey, shared a link to his appearence on the Trope-ology Podcast:

    I stopped by the Trope-ology Podcast with @themythofchris.bsky.social to natter on about Goblin Markets! Have a listen if you fancy!Available in the usual places!open.spotify.com/episode/1cfs…

    — Trip Galey (@trip.bsky.social) 2025-09-14T08:01:28.453Z

    And Simon of Savidge Reads, shared his September Reading Horizons:

    #booksky let’s chat about what we’ve all read, are reading and what we may well read next over hereyoutu.be/u_Rg-FvETLk

    — Simon Savidge (@savidgereads.bsky.social) 2025-09-12T17:43:57.242Z

    SciFiScavenger has asked a great question about rereading:

    I was asked earlier how many books I re-read. Answer not v many, much as I'd like to, I have too much exploring to do, too many other books on my shelves, even more not yet acquired. I worked out that my re-read rate this year so far is around 3%.🪐📚 #scifbooks #sciencefiction

    — SciFiScavenger (@scifiscavenger.bsky.social) 2025-09-19T13:53:24.101Z

    My answer was:

    I’m at 10% for the year. I re-read two books from the Rivers of London series. I’d love to revisit a few more—there are always plans to do so—but I’ve never made the time.

    Finally, I want to share Niall’s stack of books:

    And here it is with some other recent acquisitions

    — Niall Harrison (@niallharrison.bsky.social) 2025-09-20T09:24:41.441Z

    He always gives me book envy—his picks are often ones I’d never have considered on my own.

    Next week, I’ll talk about my TikTok Bookmarks, which currently stands at 236…

    This week’s Wombing Along is here and is a A lovely write-up of their week which includes: A reminder of The Scour by Richard Swan (a prequel novella) Writing The Magic hasn’t been dispatched yet Slow Gods is one to look forward to And an answer to Why Anthologies? Plus lots of other temptations and insights.

    This week’s Wombing Along is here—a lovely write-up of their week, which includes:

    • A reminder about The Scour by Richard Swan (a prequel novella to An Empire of the Wolf )
    • News that Writing The Magic hasn’t been dispatched yet
    • Slow Gods is one to look forward to
    • An answer to “Why Anthologies?”
    • Plus lots of other temptations and insights

    Until next week—happy reading!