Short Story Sunday 19: Ashok Banker, Marion Zimmer Bradley and Diana L. Paxson

I’m making a serious effort to return to blogging this year. I’ve shared a couple of projects designed to help me work through my pile of unread books and encourage me to write more at SUR. I have no specific projects outside of those which is a good thing since they’re plenty ambitious as they are. Year’s Best Fantasy 2 is included on my Currently Reading list at Goodreads which ties into one of my 2020 blogging projects. I figured a good way to break that down into bite size pieces is to revive Short Story Sunday. This originally started with a Science Fiction anthology by David G. Hartwell and I thought it would be a nice little call back to revive the series by reading a couple stories in another Hartwell anthology.

“In the Shadow of Her Wings” by Ashok Banker

Read in Year’s Best Fantasy 2 (2002), edited by David G. Hartwell and Kathryn Cramer (uncredited)

Originally published in Interzone (April 2001), edited by David Pringle

L’École des Robinsons (Godfrey Morgan) by Jules Verne Review

I’ve been a fan of Jules Verne since my youth. My dad has a collection of several of his works in French. It’s nearly an entire shelf of matching little red hardcovers, about the same size as mass market paperbacks. I believe it’s the entire The Extraordinary Voyages series, but I’m not entirely sure. I read a few of them between the ages 10 to 12 and enjoyed them a bunch. I’ve reread a couple as an adult and I can confirm that 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea holds up. It’s one of only two Verne books in my personal collection. Itching to read another of his works I borrowed a couple of my dad’s books when I visited at Christmas. One of them is L’École des Robinsons (often titled Godfrey Morgan in English after the protagonist). As you can probably guess form the French title, it’s an island survival story in the same vein as Daniel Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe. Having finished it recently, I can attest that some of Verne’s books are better suited for the audience of a 10 to 12 year old than to an adult.

2020 Blogging Projects #2: Unread Comics

I own a lot of books. Most of them I’ve read. Many still that I haven’t. This second year long project to help me work through my TBR shelf and to encourage me to write stuff for SUR will focus on comics.

I’ve put together a list of comics I’d like to read this year. I was going pick a number and use that as my goal. Instead, I’ve made a list of all the comics I own that I have yet to read and pick some from there. Here are the lists, sorted into four categories.

Multi Volume Series:

This list is made up of series, mostly. Not necessarily complete series or complete runs by a single creative team on a series, though many on this list will fit that description. All I mean by series for the context of this project is any comic that I own that has two or more volumes of it that are unread. Here is that list, in no particular order:

2020 Blogging Projects #1: Currently Reading List

One of my resolutions for the New Year is to start writing regularly at Shared Universe Reviews. In order to help me stay focused and to help accomplish my goals, I’ve thought up three projects. This is the first.

I have a secret shame that isn’t so secret, since it’s broadcasted on the internet. However, the internet is so full of publically shared secrets that I’m sure this particular guilt trip of mine is flying so low under the radar that I’m certainly the only one that knows about it. Yes, you guessed it, it’s my To Be Read pile of books. Specifically, the number of books I’m currently reading which easily surpasses a dozen books. As you can guess, I’m not actually reading over a dozen books with any kind of regularity. They’re mostly books that have been abandoned that I still want to finish reading (as opposed to books that have been deliberately abandoned, a rare event thought it does happen).