Gav Reads

A Web Log of Reading

Tag: writing

  • Sunday Summary: 14th 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.

    And I thought I’d join in.

    I’m curious about a few things:

    • Whether I’ll be able to keep it up.
    • What looking back on these posts will feel like in a year or two.

    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 a recommendation from one of my favourite BookTokers, Claire Linney. She recommended Blood Debts by Terry J. Benton-Walker. To borrow and paraphrase a bit of her summary — because that’s what got me hooked:

    Two 16-year-old twins are part of a magical bloodline, but a murder has doomed their name and stripped their mother of her throne. The story is told from the perspectives of both the twins and their adversaries. It features a magic system that’s used to comment on race, and the politics and policing around it.

    Please check out Claire’s full review here.

    I have downloaded it and it’s now on my overflowing ereader ready to read.

    @claire_linney

    Blood Debts and Blood Justice by Terry J Benton Walker – young adult for ages 13+ #diversebooks #blackauthors queerbooks #youngadultbooks #fantasybooks

    ♬ original sound – Claire Linney Author

    On Bluesky two posts on criticism have been shared:

    • One by New York Magazine
    • One by Reator Magazine (formly Tor.com):

    Do reviews draw readers? Boost subscriptions? Sell ads? And if the answer is ‘no,’ what then? Charlotte Klein explores the precarious state of cultural criticism.

    — New York Magazine (@nymag.com) 2025-09-08T09:10:36.872Z

    In the latest Mark As Read, @mollytempleton.com places The Death of the Critic into context. For how long has criticism has been dying, and how do we engage with discussions about art?reactormag.com/its-not-the-…

    — Reactor Magazine (@reactorsff.bsky.social) 2025-09-11T15:37:43.114Z

    I’m bookmarking these to digest later, but Niall Harrison pointed out a quote from Christine Smallwood that really interests me:

    Criticism is an act of autobiography. The work of making an argu­ment, coming to a judgment, or simply choosing which books or objects to give time and attention to is inevitably, helplessly, an expression of values

    And borrowing an item from Womble:

    A Bluesky post by Zach that says: I've been working on embracing the critic's version of this, which is "life is too short to tackle a book about which you don't have something interesting to say, good or bad" Zach is quoting Sonora Taylor: For anyone who needs to hear this: life is too short to finish a book you're not enjoying. Prose is annoying you? Don't finish it. It feels like a chore to pick up and read? Don't finish it. Just not feeling it? Don't finish it. We're not in class. There won't be a test. Read for *your* enjoyment.

    I need to ponder this some more. If you’re a media outlet (like Locus) or a specialist blog, you’ll likely be commenting on ‘significant’ or potentially ‘significant’ books in your area of interest. But more generally, I think we’re in the age of influencers — and influencers should be more willing to step back from the flow and share what’s important to them. Claire and Womble are both great examples of that philosophy.

    As an aside, I’m enjoying reading anthologies for my BFA challenge. However, I’ve given myself permission to skip those that don’t resonate from the start or that I fizzle out with. I’m unlikely to have anything interesting to say about them—unless the number of skips ends up reflecting something about the anthology as a whole.

    Don’t tell anyone, but I’m struggling to find time to listen to audiobooks — which is why I’ve been reading The Devils by Joe Abercrombie since the 7th of May and I’m only 46% through. It’s frustrating because I’m really enjoying Steven Pacey’s performance, and I want to listen to Let the Bad Times Roll by Alice Slatter.

    I’m going to have to just read the ebook versions of both, which will be great — but not quite the experience I was hoping for.

    Lastly, what are my plans for the rest of September? Well, I need to crack on with World Fantasy Award novellas:

    • Crypt of the Moon Spider by Nathan Ballingrud (Tor Nightfire / Titan Books)
    • In the Shadow of Their Dying by Michael F. Fletcher and Anna Smith Spark (Grimdark Magazine)
    • Yoke of Stars by R. B. Lemberg (Tachyon Publications)
    • The Woods All Black by Lee Mandelo (Tordotcom)
    • The Butcher of the Forest by Premee Mohamed (Tordotcom / Titan Books UK)

    And finsih the remaining British Fantasy Awards Best Anthology nominees:

    • Heartwood: A Mythago Wood Anthology, edited by Dan Coxon – PS Publishing
    • The Year’s Best African Speculative Fiction (2023), edited by Oghenechovwe Donald Ekpeki and Chinaza Eziaghighala – Caezik SF & Fantasy
    • Bury Your Gays – An Anthology of Tragic Queer Horror, edited by Sofia Ajram – Ghoulish Books

    I can guarantee you that I’m not looking forward to Bury Your Gays—it’s exactly the type of tales I tend to avoid—but I’ve committed myself now, so wish me luck when I get there.

    Apart from those, I’m planning to finish The Devils and The Last Hour Between Worlds by Melissa Caruso, as I keep pushing them aside for the anthologies. My last experience with The Last Hour Between Worlds had me sitting there gasping at something she had cleverly woven in. Like The Devils, The Last Hour Between Worlds is proving to be very entertaining.

    Until next week—happy reading!

  • BFA25 Review: Fight Like A Girl 2 edited by Roz Clarke and Joanne Hall

    This is the third review from my challenge to read the 2025 British Fantasy Award Best Anthology category.

    In the introduction, Charlotte Bond writes:

    Whatever your taste, whatever you’re looking for, in these pages, you will learn one thing: how to fight like a girl.

    And I did — though I also found a few stories that weren’t to my taste, which is a shame. With fewer stories than the other anthologies I’ve read so far, the weaker ones stand out a little more — but never mind, there are still some standout tales here.

    K T Davies’s The Seamstress, the Hound, the Cook, and her Brother surprised me the most using a triptych to follow a crime through different eyes. Having seen the situation build from competing viewpoints, the shifting perspectives give the reader deeper insight into the final scene.

    Shifts in perspective are definitely a theme.

    One perspective I enjoyed — though I felt a little cheated by — was in A Human Response by Dolly Garland. Here a women’s body is replaced, and she finds herself trapped. Slowly, she pieces together what happens to her. The character is supposed to be without emotion, yet she has emotional reactions, which feels jarring. It also fades to black at a key moment in the ending, which I think robbed the character of the agency Garland had built up.

    In In More Trouble Than She’s Worth? by Cheryl Morgan, the narrator lacks agency, but her perspective offers some great observations. For example:

    I like the chrome in the sick bay, but am not convinced by the white. My crew have odd taste at times. I, by the way, am Sagaris, an Artemis Class cruiser of the Queen’s Amazon Navy, General Thomys commanding.

    And

    I got him though, didn’t I?, I thought proudly to myself. You can’t scrag a target without wobbling a few crew stomachs. A little non-fatal discomfort does the little ones good.

    In this tale, the crew picks up some very precious cargo. Morgan uses the situation to explore how women can be both mothers and fighters — and how that differs from their enemies. This one made me cry.

    The arrogance of men was explored by directly and successfully by both Gaie Sebold and Juliet E. McKenna.

    In Ambition’s Engine, Sebold takes us to high society, where a newly appointed Chief Defender of the Dominion’s Transport hatches a plan to get more from a train ride than he was commissioned for. Sebold packs in commentary about war, colonialism, and the arrogance of powerful men.

    With Civil War, McKenna examines the impact of a change in monarch when the King has no male heir. She explores the options available to the court and the guilds. This was a like watching a royal game of chess and I didn’t see final the move until it was too late. Very cleverly done.

    In the introduction Roz Clarke and Joanne Hall suggest:

    ‘…perhaps now we can look beyond a direct kick back against the idea that women can’t fight, and start to reintegrate more traditionally acceptable forms of feminine power with that warrior archetype.’

    And they’ve proved with this collection that fighting and feminine power take many forms — from the bloody, to the subtle, to the fearless — with motivations that defy the ‘warrior archetype’.

    If you don’t need convincing that women can fight, this collection is for you. There are some excellent stories here.

    And if you do need some persuasion, this collection is also for you — though you might end up a little more paranoid than before, as not all fights are direct confrontations or fairly fought.

    Anthology Details

    Title: Fight Like a Girl – Volume 2
    Editors: Roz Clarke, Joanne Hall
    Publisher: Wizard’s Tower Press
    Publication Date: Autumn 2024
    ISBN (Paperback): 9781913892845
    ISBN (EPUB): 9781913892852
    ISBN (MOBI): 9781913892869
    Format: Paperback, EPUB, MOBI

  • BFA25 Review: Nova Scotia Vol 2 edited by Neil Williamson and Andrew J Wilson [2024]

    This is the first review from my challenge to read the 2025 British Fantasy Award Best Anthology category.

    Nova Scotia 2 Cover Art

    An anthology, to me, is a little bit like a selection box—mostly treats you’ve never tried before. There might be an author or two you’ve read previously, but for the most part, they’re new experiences. And I can say that’s true of this anthology.

    Jon Courtenay Grimwood and Ken MacLeod are authors I’ve read and enjoyed before. The others—apart from Grant Morrison—were unknown to me.

    The editors, Neil Williamson and Andrew J. Wilson, in their introduction to this collection of new speculative fiction from Scotland, ask and answer the question: What is speculative fiction?

    “It’s writing that challenges consensus reality. Speculative fiction includes science fiction, fantasy, horror, and all the variants and subgenres of these imaginative approaches to storytelling. What does it have to do with Scotland? Everything!”

    They also explain how they see the contributors’ connection to Scotland:

    “The contributors are all Scots. They’re Scottish in the broadest sense: some were native-born while others have chosen to make their home here; some are Highlanders and islanders, others urbanites; and this gives us an extraordinary range of perspectives. We wanted this collection to be inclusive, not exclusive, and we wanted not only the tight focus of introspection, but also the ability to see ourselves, as Burns had it, as others see us.”

    Did every story give me a sense of connection to Scotland? Not quite. There were definitely some stories that didn’t evoke that feeling, despite the editorial postscript often trying to explain the link. That sense of connection swings from strong to weak, and in a couple of cases, I felt their inclusion was tentative at best.

    The opening story by Ken MacLeod threw me slightly. It resurrects two folk singers from an earlier story (Newton’s Wake)—I’ve no idea how significant they were, as I’ve never met them before. Ken places them on a future Mars where AIs have not been a gift to humanity. But what niggled me was the use of “Joint Chiefs” in a military context. It felt like an odd Americanism in a story that should centre Scotland.

    Not understanding the importance of political and protest songs to Scotland reflects my own ignorance. And opening with what ends up being a very clever story, with multiple layers, set me up for the whiplash that followed.

    The whiplash effect comes from jumping between strong voices—at least at the beginning. There’s a TV star whose family traditions lie in curses, a homecoming that could lead to confrontation, a detective who gets too nosy about a specialist investigation team, and a good old-fashioned locked-room murder.

    A story that’s exceptional but felt out of place is Lise and Otto by Pippa Goldschmidt. It describes the rise of the Nazis but doesn’t, as hinted in the introduction, lean into the idea of “as others see us.”

    Another story I enjoyed was Broderie Écossaise by Eris Young. Again, it lacked a grounding in Scotland, though I’m glad I read such a clever story about embroidery and desire.

    We slip into body horror with Grimaldo the Weeping, as Ali Maloney explores the power of stories—and how often they’re closer to reality than we’d like.

    Junior by Lindz McLeod floored me. You’ll see why when you read it.

    There were also a few skips—sorry, Grant, I just couldn’t get into it.

    There’s environmental exploration in a couple of stories, volunteering that goes wrong, and the cutest—but saddest—dodo story.

    I need Doug Johnstone to write another story set in the world of Under the Hagstone—ideally with the same characters.

    There were more skips, and a few misses, but overall I’d say there’s enough variety and story strength to justify reading this all the way through—skipping where appropriate.

    Anthology Details

    • Title: Nova Scotia Vol 2: New Speculative Fiction from Scotland
    • Editors: Neil Williamson, Andrew J. Wilson
    • Publisher: Luna Press Publishing
    • Publication Date: July 30, 2024
    • ISBN: 978-1915556431
    • Format: Paperback