Butcher’s Crossing by John Williams
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Great characters - Miller, Charley - really felt
in the landscape, some very well written atmospheric sections - the
snow storm, the river crossing, the fire. Good storytelling. Fine read.
View all my reviews
This is How You Lose the Time War by Amal El-Mohtar
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
I found this a challenging book to get into but by then end felt it might deserve a reread.
It
is an unusual story, scifi, speculating a world of warring fractions
each trying to control the time line to ensure their supremacy. But the
book is no space opera, instead an intimate story of love told in
epistolary form between two opposing agent provocateurs, as they
navigate the time threads.
I can see why it won awards, but for me it lacked something mais je ne sais quoi .
Footnote: According to Wikepedia (2023_10_18)
It won BSFA Award for Best Shorter Fiction,
Nebula Award for Best Novella of 2019,
2020 Locus Award for Best Novella,
2020 Hugo Award for Best Novella,
2020 Prix Aurora Award for short fiction,
and was a finalist for the 2019 Shirley Jackson Award in the Novella category
a finalist for the inaugural Ray Bradbury Award for Science Fiction, Fantasy & Speculative Fiction at the 2019 Los Angeles Times Book Prizes,
a finalist for the 2019 Kitschies in the Novel category,
and second place in the 2020 Theodore Sturgeon Memorial Award.
Babel: An Arcane History by R.F. Kuang