Hey everybody - I thought I was a super-dodger, but I’m not. I got covid this week! My symptoms were, luckily, quite mild. But I was still sick, and pretty tired, and trying to “take it easy.” I did get some reading done, which I will report on later. I also plan on doing a podcast episode next week. For now, here’s a reading election open to all readers, and a Mithra pic!
VOTE ON MY READING
You can vote on the stuff I read! Yes you! I’ve been doing it for a while, and people seem to not get it (or maybe it’s just not that much of an inducement!). You don’t need to be a “high-information voter,” you get to vote because I let you! Sometimes I reserve the right to vote to Citizens who pay me money. But I figure, seeing as I haven’t been putting out much content lately, you can all vote, as a “treat.”
This election will be for my next few recreational reading books. These are genre novels, light literary fiction, and easy to read nonfiction that I enjoy in my “off-hours.” I will read these books in order of votes received, so if you want to hear about one sooner than the others, vote for it! The election will end about 24 hours after this newsletter goes out. Any ties will be broken by Roomie Ed.
THE CANDIDATES
Philip K. Dick, A Crack in Space (1966) - Philip K. Dick! A giant in the field. I’ve now read, probably, a majority of his work… but not this one! What’s it about? How wild will it be? Will it reference any of his divorces? What was he reading or thinking about at the time — Nazis? Opera? The price of barbie dolls? — that will filter in to the text? Let’s find out!
Marquis James, The Raven: A Biography of Sam Houston (1929) - I’m not sure how or why I picked this one up. Houston is an interesting figure, more involved than one might think, as we overcorrect for generations of hero-worship and flatten a lot of the “great men” into the sum of their (very real and important) crimes. I do enjoy a good “life and times” biography. Is this one? Who knows?
Anne McCaffrey, Dragonflight (1968) - I have some dear friends — pretty much all women, I think — for whom McCaffrey’s dragon novels were their formative SFF works. What will the interactions between dragons and space-age humans be like? Will they learn to work together? Will their flights be fruitful? There’s only one way to find out!
Anyway! Have a vote, and Mithra and I will be back next week, hopefully fully healed up and rested!