Helloooooo!

Yes I am actually living up to the name of the weekly update for a change. It has been a great but challenging week at work as I’m starting to see the scale of what needs doing and where I fit in! Long days but avoiding weekend work like the plague – next week I may even see the office twice! General feeling in my UK employer is 2-3 days at office will become the norm so we’ll see how that evolves – we are going to be in new territory but it is quite fascinating how so few even in senior roles want to return to five days a week commutes.

Otherwise, lovely to meet the family again and am now onto Week 8 of Couch Potato to 5k; just one more week and I can run for thirty minutes -eek so close! Reading speed feels back to normal and so nice to resume the readalongs again.

Awards

The Clarke Awards has been doing some very interesting things recently and for me is looking to crate a much more interesting list representing the diversity in science fiction. This year’s list appears to eb all debuts and is shown here at The Arthur C. Clarke Award. I like the Clarke’s recent approach and think it’s important for us to remember that these days SF and what is the best is a much more variable concept than just lists of the same old names again and again. I read an absolutely tone-deaf criticism of Becky Chambers work a few years ago that was absolutely old person shouting at the clouds and being snobbish towards changing tastes so intrigued at the reaction some quarters give this one. Awards should provoke debate so I hope to report back as we move along until it is announced in September!

Things I listened to

Much quieter week so nothing to report on.

What I’ve Been Watching

Main one has been Loki this week and an interesting although quite scene setting part 1 with lots of exposition mixed in with time travel japes. Hope to watch a few more next week and see if the story can widen out beyond one office

What Have I been reading?

Vampires Never Get Old - Tales With Fresh Bite edited by Zoraida Cordova and Natalie C Parker – a refreshing YA focused anthology mixing horror, romance and comedy with some absolute gems

Queen of the Cicadas by V. Castro – a really interesting story that takes your standard revenge ghost stiry and does some interesting things on racism and social media that I enjoyed a lot!

Adulthood Rites by Octavia E Butler once again Butler delivers an unusual smart tale of differing perspective son society, control and progress versus self destruction. Never boring always thoughtful. I actually am going to pick up the pace on this readalong so expect a lot more soon!

What am I Going to Read?

In the near future Gloss, Darkness, the World, Shards, Men, Aliens and an empire.

And so much more!! Good luck for the future – we will get there. See you in a week!