valoise

A lot of my free time last month was spent reviewing the eligibility of sources nominated for this year's Festivids. Here's what I did read.

Doctor Who: The Glamour Case by Gary Russell
This was okay, focusing a lot on Rory, but the characterization of the eleventh Doctor just felt a bit off. Looking at the publication info, that's not surprising. The book came out 2011 just a couple of month after Matt Smith's first episodes. Russell must have been writing this before the episodes had aired.

The Hobbit: Enhanced Edition by J. R. R. Tolkien
I've lost count of the number of times I've read The Hobbit, but this version I'd only read once before. It was published a year before the first Hobbit movie appeared in theaters and is an interactive, multimedia version of the classic story. There are three audio recordings of Tolkien reading sections of the book and in Chapter 1 you can hear him sing the Chip the glasses and crack the plates! song. Also included are 27 of Tolkien's original illustrations which, when you click on them, switch from black and white line drawings to alternate colored versions. Then there's Thror's map which you can click between the map as Gandalf presented it to Thorin and and a version with the moon letters in red ink.

Ode to the Half-Broken by Suzanne Palmer
Taking a break from her Finder Chronicles series, this one takes place in a dystopia caused by climate change and the aftermath of wars and pandemics. The main character is a former war mecha who has been living a quiet life in isolation studying the behaviors of insects. After being attacked it is wakes up in an unknown location, missing a leg. The story follows it as it journeys to get the leg back, uncovering evidence of evil-doers manipulating events among human and mecha communities. The book follows the mecha and the community of beings who join it on the quest. I really enjoyed it and it's going on my Hugo nominations for next year.

Wintersmith by Terry Pratchett
I got the audiobook from the library and enjoyed this. Not my favorite Tiffany Aching novel, but it's always nice to read new-to-me Pratchett.

A Stitch in Time by Andrew J. Robinson
I've been looking for a copy of this for a very long time. Wonderful biography of Garak's life, from childhood to after the end of the Dominion war. A lot of actor's say they kind of flesh out the life of the characters they play in the mind, but Robinson's account is fantastic and far beyond what I expected. I can see know why this out of print book is so highly sought after.

Hippie Food: How Back-to-the-Landers, Longhairs, and Revolutionaries Changed the Way We Eat by Jonathan Kauffman
This was recommended by someone on booknook. It examines the roots of the vegetarian, natural foods, organic farming trends of the last 1960s & 1970s. What I really appreciated was his in depth exploration of the religious, health food, and other movements from the late 19th century and onward that predated and influenced the counterculture movements attributed to hippie culture.

Sharing Recipes by Seldovia Village Tribe
One thing I like about community cookbooks is the way it reflects the culture and community of the people who contribute the recipes. This one comes from the people of Seldovia, Alaska. A small isolated village only accessible by ferry, it is full of recipes for local seafood and game. In fact, it's the only one I've ever read with recipes for bear and caribou.

Beyond the Blue Horizon by Frederik Pohl
I was so impressed by Gateway, I decided to read the next book in the series. Gateway was a tightly written book, this was a meandering mess.

Automatic Noodle by Annalee Newitz
I'd read a lot of glowing reviews for this and decided to give it a try. Very cozy and enjoyable book about a found family of robots recently granted personhood who are trying to find a place for themselves. It's up for Best Novella in the Hugo Awards this year and I was happy to put it at the top of my ballot.

When Late the Sweet Birds Sing by Kate Wilhelm
Published in 1976 & won the 1977 Best Novel Hugo, but it's the first book I'd ever read by Wilhelm. An interesting study in what make us human.

Shroud by Adrian Tchaikovsky
Really phenomenal worldbuiding, humans and aliens so different it's hard for them to recognize that the others are alive and sentient. His writing is so addictive I found myself reading very late every night long after I should have gone to bed.

There and Back Again: Diaries, 1999-2009 by Michael Palin
The latest in his published diaries, I've reading a bit off and on for a couple of months. I really wish some of his travel shows that he talks about in them were streaming in the US.

Shards of Earth by Adrian Tchaikovsy
The first book in his Final Architecture series, I liked it quite a bit. I am grateful that he added a glossary to back to help keep everything straight in a complicated universe.

In the Ravine and Other Stories by Anton Chekhov
I'd never read anything by him before and these were interesting. For the most part they felt more like little slices of life in Tsarist Russia than plotted stories.

Women in the Kitchen by Ann Willan
The book focuses on women who published cookbooks from 1661 through the early 20th century, providing a brief biography and few recipes from their works. She seemed overly focused on the past 50 years, the balance of history seemed a bit off.

Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir
Enjoyable reread after having seen the movie.

I swear this is the last post on my 2025 reading list, but I wanted to share my favorites this year.

Fiction
Death of the Author by Nnedi Okorafor
Memory's Legion by James S. A. Corey
Service Model by Adrian Tchaikovsky
The Incandescent by Emily Tesh
The Buffalo Hunter Hunter by Stephen Graham Jones

Nonfiction
How We Lived Then, 1914-1918 by Dorothy Peel
A Village Lost and Found by Brian May and Elena Vidal
The Queens of Animation by Nathalia Hold

Rereads
A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess
The Murderbot series by Martha Wells

The Shattering Peace by John Scalzi
The latest entry in The Old Man's War series, the shift in focus & POV characters from book to book continues, and brought things to a pretty good ending if he deices to end the series here.

The Queens of Animation by Nathalia Holt
A history of women working at Walt Disney Productions. Primarily focusing on the era between 1937 to Disney's death in 1966, she also the most modern era of Disney through The Lion King in 2018.
She covers conditions in the workplace, WWII and its aftermath, the affects of technical development on staff & film making, racism and misogyny in the workplace and more.

For the earliest era I took the time to watch some of the early films I hadn't seen. I was really impressed by the surreal and almost psychedelic opening of Fantasia. Also, just before WWII started Disney took some of his top animators & illustrators along on a State Department sponsored trip to South America. The resulting film, Saludos Amigos, included a beautiful sequence on Rio de Janeiro made from Mary Blair's fantastic watercolor sketches she made during the trip.

Archimagus-Anglo Gallica" or Excellent and Approved Receipts and Experiments in Cookery by Sir Theodore Mayerne
Published in 1658, this was a surprisingly good book including at least a couple or recipes I hadn't ever seen in a book this early, including sweet potato pie and instructions for making an egg wash for pastry.

Hokolua Road by Elizabeth Hand
Deftly weaves Hawaiian folklore, a touch of horror, and a serial killer mystery.

Joyride by Guy Adams
This was a tie-in novel for the Doctor Who spin-off Class. The heart of the story in an unscrupulous person gets his hands on an alien machine that temporarily transfer a persons consciousness into another's body and then rents out time on the machine to some very nasty people.