Away – Reading List

Abroad for work at the moment, so nothing much to report this week, save perhaps my reading list for the trip – there are some books there that’ll probably turn up in review form on this blog. Iron Widow by Xiran Jay Zhao is right at the top of the list, as it’s a) giant robots and b) medieval Chines history, for which I have a particular weakness. Arkady Martine’s A Memory Called Empire gives me some pleasantly Iain M. Banks-esque vibes.

But I’m also about to finish the Department 19 books by Will Hill, which I started as a kid but never quite finished (as, in fairness, he hadn’t finished writing them yet). TL;DR: secret military agency versus vampires. They were, and still appear to be, marketed as kids’ books. I’m not sure they should be. The bloody violence is very well written, but there’s an awful lot of it.

I’ll write some thoughts up once I’m done reading them all. And then, once I’m back home and no longer have to worry about suitcase space, the Riftwar beckons…