Dead End Jobs: The Dead Take the A Train

Julie Crews takes the nasty jobs.

If something eldritch is trying to lay eggs under your skin to prepare the way for the end of the world, she’ll flay you open, jam her arms up to the elbows into your chest cavity, carve the fucker out, sew you up and send you on your way, only mildly traumatized.

Whatever it takes to get by in New York City, after all. That and support her cocaine habit.

The Dead Take the A Train is not for the faint of heart. It’s gory and gruesome in new and inventive ways that I found invigorating as long as I wasn’t eating at the time.

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Truth is a Mystery: Magic for Liars

Magic for Liars has a very cool cover, but I think it led me astray. I was expecting something a bit more dynamic based on that design and the book’s excellent title, but the resulting story was only competent and a bit unexciting. I did like the book well enough, and would definitely be game for reading work by Sarah Gailey – I’ve seen raves for just about everything they’ve ever written – but maybe I’d prefer the ones about carnivorous hippos?

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Turtles and Cats in the City at Night: The Intergalactic Interloper by Delas Heras

A turtle and cat make friends.

When I read about Delas Heras’ debut, The Intergalactic Interloper, it sounded like a perfect change of pace from the world outside.

It’s a short book, humorous if not laugh-out-loud funny, and charming in a gentle, nostalgic way.

The action begins in the distant past of New York City 1995, a place and time that feels comforting purely because it is a quarter of a century and thousands of miles away from where I am right now.

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More Than Wordsmiths: Foundryside by Robert Jackson Bennett

Foundryside cover detail

Golems from Jewish folklore have always fascinated me, with their heads full of instructions written on a life-giving scroll. A golem is both the creation myth in miniature and a way to codify magic, a sort of early computer programming where the processors are clay giants. It’s strangely comforting to imagine that human beings could control the world in such a fashion, while also terrifying to imagine the many ways it could go wrong.

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A Detailed Mirage: Fata Morgana by Steven R. Boyett and Ken Mitchroney

Fata Morgana by Steven R. Boyett and Ken Mitchroney Published: June 13, 2017 Publisher: Blackstone Audio, Inc. Genre(s): Adventure, War, Science Fiction Format: Audiobook Length: 12 hrs and 9 mins I think what drew me to Fata Morgana was the promise of an old-fashioned adventure with a bit of romance: a WW2 bomber plane flies … Read more

The Self-Made Detective: IQ by Joe Ide

Joe Ide’s debut novel, IQ, won’t revolutionize the detective genre, but it does tell an entertaining story about well-drawn and complex characters. It wasn’t the most exciting crime novel I’ve ever read, but I’d be happy to follow the future exploits of Isaiah Quintabe wherever they lead.

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Good Behavior: Good, Not Best

Good Behavior is simultaneously the definitive collection of Letty Dobesh stories by Blake Crouch and no longer the definitive story of Letty herself.

These stories were originally published as three separate novellas over the course of a few years. As of 2016, they are also the basis for a TNT series starring Michelle Dockery in her first post-Downton role in an ongoing series. The stories are collected in one volume along with author commentary.

However, unlike other book adaptations, I think I might recommend watching the show *before* reading Good Behavior. These stories read a hell of a lot like the rough draft of the show, and might best be appreciated with that in mind.

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Lincoln in the Bardo: A Tumult of Hauntings

George Saunders is an amazing short story author. I’d put him up there with Kelly Link, Steven Millhauser and Jorge Luis Borges in my pantheon of personal favorites. However, until Lincoln in the Bardo, Saunders had never published a novel. This seems to be a common trait among the short story authors I love; they rarely, if ever, turn their talents to novel-length works.

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First, Do Your Homework: Texts From Jane Eyre

The Toast is (was?) a hilarious website (RIP) and Mallory Ortberg is one of the funniest people I’ve ever read, so when Audible put her book, Texts From Jane Eyre on sale for 99 cents, I picked it up without a moment’s hesitation.

The basic premise of Texts From Jane Eyre is that your favorite characters from classic literature have the anachronistic ability to communicate by text. Hijinks ensue.

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Girl vs. Ash: Darla’s Story by Mike Mullin

Darla’s Story is novella that provides a bit of backstory for a character in Mike Mullin’s Ashfall trilogy. I haven’t read the trilogy, but the novella is meant to stand alone as a complete work, so I read it with that in mind.

I instantly liked the fact that this story features an Iowan farm girl as its main character. I also liked that it doesn’t take place in a far-flung dystopian future. Instead, it takes place immediately after an apocalyptic volcano eruption covers the entire US in falling ash. Midwesterners and the mid-apocalypse aren’t common tropes in YA (at least not the books I’ve read), so I was intrigued by the novelty.

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