The first was really good. It was a new take on the magic school genre for me.

I Finished A Psalm for the Wild Built and really enjoyed it now to the second of the scolomance series by Naomi Novik, The Last Graduate.

I’m pretty familiar with Norse mythology and he did a good job looking at and editing the myths with a storytelling eye.

I got really distracted in June and that still persists a bit in July as I work on some projects and try to get caught up with some podcasts and shows/movies.

That all said, I just started the first of the Monk and Robot books, A Psalm for the Wild Built by Becky Chambers.

I really enjoyed On Stranger Tides.

I fished up Swordheart by T. Kingfisher and really enjoyed it. There are potential sequels out there to be written but the whole collection is fun.

This week my optimistic goal is Butcher of the Forest by Premee Mohamed and if I get that far Lud-in-the-Mist by Hope Mirrlees. It’s a busy week though so we’ll see how far I get. Both are for bingo squares.

Proven Guilty is one of my favorites and sets up a bunch of stuff that is important “later”.

I’m split on King. Some of just stuff like Eyes of the Dragon I’ve read multiple times because it’s so good, others like Needful Things I DNFed quickly.

Have you read The 7 1/2 Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle by Stuart Turton yet? It’s a pretty solid and enjoyable locked room style mystery. I read it a few years ago for a different Bingo and really liked it.

I finished Ella Minnow Pea by Mark Dunn and really enjoyed it. If you struggle with dyslexia or are an adapted dyslexic reader like my wife, the last ¾ of the book gets pretty tough to read. I’m reading Swordheart by T. Kingfisher now. It’s the last book in her World of the White Rat collection I hadn’t read yet.

As to moving books around, absolutely! That’s in fact what I’ve had to do in the past Bingos when I had better options for some squares that left easier ones open as I went through the year.

I’m reading Ella Minnow Pea by Mark Dunn. It’s an epistolary novel where the author must continually use fewer and fewer letters of the alphabet due to actions within the story. It’s been pretty good so far. It is my experimental square.

Thanks, I bought the series a while back and I have yet to start reading it, but I’m looking forward to it

Do you have any recommendations?

Maybe: One you feel is the Best? First I should read to get a feel? Your Favorite?

You mentioning this is what made me think to post this post about LitRPG/GameLit.

I have a feeling that’s kind of where I’m gonna end up as well. As a general statement, I’m not sure that I enjoy the genre on its own like I generally do fantasy, mystery, or science fiction, but I am definitely enjoying a few of the books in the genre a lot.

I’ve been way busier than I expected with the end of the school year coming up. I managed to finally start The Thief Who Pulled on Trouble’s Braids by Michael McClung though. It’s been near the top of my TBR list when someone recommended it alongside The Lies of Locke Lamora by Scott Lynch as great thief/heist style books. And it works for a Bingo Square.

I’m not really far enough in to have an opinion though.

I first read her stuff when she did a bunch of early Star Trek and Star Wars books in the 80s-90s. I always loved her stuff. Great choice.

One other square as it exists on your card. If you swap a square to an alternate, that square now exists on your card, otherwise they do not.

That’s a good question, and if you’re referring to the book I think you are that was a tough one for me when I was thinking about it.

Where I came down ultimately was whether or not the disability required some level of adaptation in day to day tasks for a non insignificant passage of time.

The D&D artifacts The Eye of Vecna and The Hand of Vecna are good comparisons. Both require removing the corresponding body part to use, but if you replace your original one with the artifact immediately after removing the corresponding body part and you have similar functionality as you did before but now with extra abilities; the you never really need to learn to adapt to the loss. Now if a character had been born blind and later gained the Eye of Vecna, they would gain sight, but would have had a significant experience of managing without it.

I had a similar experience when I was working through some of the early “The Shadow” pulps and was surprised a couple times at just how blatant the racism was.

That’s awesome. A couple of us were looking for something similar when we left a year ago, and I’m glad you’re looking forward to it.