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Wants to read The Adventures of Wesley Jackson

Rated The Crisis of Narration 8/10

Rated The Wandering Earth 4/10

Rated Maintenance of Everything: Part One 6/10

Rated Boyd: The Fighter Pilot Who Changed the Art of War 8/10

Finished reading The Secret Life of Groceries: The Dark Miracle of the American Supermarket

Wants to read Stoner

Finished reading After Dark

Wants to read Werner Herzog – A Guide for the Perplexed: Conversations with Paul Cronin

Rated Gateway 8/10

Humanity discovers an advanced civilization, which has become extinct, but has left a mysterious Gateway in our solar system. Gateway is a small world which houses many ships capable of taking adventurers on missions to undisclosed locations. The controls are cryptic, but slowly residents of gateways gain a better understanding of how they work. Gateway is controlled by a conspicuously evil transnational corporation, which pays prospectors to take dangerous trips on these ships with the in hopes of discovery. They pay out lucrative bonuses.<br/><br/>The protagonist, an unsympathetic, and cowardly Robinette (aka Bob), comes to gateway to try to strike it rich. He struggles with his own fears of going on missions, and falls in love with Klara. Their dysfunctional relationship, his troubled childhood, and pathological fear is woven deeply into the structure of the book. Chapters alternate between Bob's memories on Gateway and Bob the rich ex-prospector getting therapy sessions from a sentient Robo-psychoanalyst on Earth. Bob's last mission ends in disaster, as he is separated from his beloved as their ships try to escape from a black hole. Bob returns the sole survivor, gets an inordinate amount of money from the corporation, but remains forever unhappy, missing Klara and suffering from immense guilt.<br/><br/>Overall, I liked the book. It was well written and captivating, reminding in some ways of Robert Heinlein, but maybe a bit more dystopian. There were many familiar tropes, such as a very interracial cast with exotic combinations of first and last names, like Dane Metchnikov. Bob's adventures with hot space babes are also I think a hallmark of this style of science fiction. I also enjoyed Pohl's excerpts of Gateway public announcements, mission reports and classifieds littered throughout the book.<br/><br/>

Wants to read One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich

Wants to read Giovanni’s Room

Finished reading Practical Doomsday: A User's Guide to the End of the World

Rated Range: Why Generalists Triumph in a Specialized World 10/10

Finished reading The Goal: A Business Graphic Novel

Rated Hyperion 10/10

Rated Rainbows End 6/10

Wants to read Too Cool for School: A Memoir

Finished reading True Stories

Rated Uncanny Magazine Issue 14: January/February 2017 4/10

<div>Though I appreciate what this mag is trying to do in terms of prioritizing different voices in fantasy writing, unfortunately it doesn't bring much that I enjoyed. I liked a few things in here well enough (the Santería poem the most, maybe), but groaned at a LOT of the stories. Overcooked prose, badly in need of trimming, bangs out a thesaurus' most "whimsical" adjectives when a simpler approach would do. One interview was better than the other.<br><br>Just not for me, but at least it wasn't all bad. And it was short. I'm sure other issues are better, but I'm not in a hurry to find out.</div>

Rated My Russian Grandmother and Her American Vacuum Cleaner: A Family Memoir 8/10

Wants to read Akata Witch

Rated Hild 10/10

<div>I picked this up on the recommendation of a few people and I loved it. Great historical fiction that also doesn't feel as long as the book is. I will definitely read book #2.</div>

Wants to read How to Solve Your Own Murder

Finished reading Autonomous