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The Nebula nominees keep coming and I keep knocking them down! So far, I haven't really run into anything I have found so undesireable that I have been unable to finish it. I realize that some things are not going to be to my taste, and I am not going to beat myself up for not finishing them. The novellettes were not a problem. Also, how cute is the word "novellette"? I read some really great stories in this category. "The Long Fall Up" is simply mind-blowing with the idea that a woman so wants to give birth under her own terms that should would steal a spaceship and take off-knowing that she would be alone for delivery. Wow. "Sooner or Later Everything Falls into the Sea" is another modern fairy tale that I just loved. Seriously, Sarah Pinsker just made the LIST (the list of new authors I have discovered while doing this project). "Blood Grains Speak Through Memories" is unlike anything I have every read in my entire life, it freaked m...

This post is my progress report on my self-challenge to read all of the 2017  Nebula nominees! So far, I have completed the short story category and most of the the novelettes. I have 3 novellas and 3 novels to go. Nebula Award Nominees 2017- Short Stories What fun! I would never have read any of these stories on my own, although I expect some of these will show up in some future anthologies. I have one personal gripe, and this will come up again in another category, and that is the death of the horror genre. Because they have just killed "horror" and lumped scary stories in with science fiction and fantasy, we get stories like Sabbath Wine trying to compete with Our Talons Can Crush Galaxies and it's not fair. It really is apples and oranges. Don't believe me about horror? Go find the horror section in the Barnes and Noble. Go ahead, I'll wait.       Griping over, this selection of stories was AWESOME and heavy on the fantasy stories. Seasons a...

I am on a mission to read all of the Nebula Award Nominees before the awards are presented on May 20th. This was prompted by the fact that I see these awards all of the time and I have only recently gotten hooked on science fiction so I think it is important to understand what the community thinks is the best of the best. I plan to do the exact same thing for the Hugos, but I have time. Unlike childrens' book awards, in which awards do not in any way equal popularity, readers seem to like to award favorites. It's no secret I am just crazy about N.K. Jemisin and her writing. Honestly it is because of she and Kameron Hurley and Becky Chambers and Jacqueline Koyanagi and Charlie Jane Anders and John Scalzi and James S.A. Corey (both of them) that I find myself absolutely loving this genre. I have NO desire to go back and read early science fiction with dorky cartoon covers featuring sexy aliens and white dudes holding Jetson-esque blasters. I want to read forward. I like wher...

I think my first readathon went very, very well. I'm not just thinking about what I read or how much I read but about the day in general. It was gorgeous weather, I had very few distractions, and I was able to stay on track with only two breaks. The first was to go food shopping (it had to be done, People!) and then second to attend an event at the local B&N where they were introducing new tabletop games. I only stayed for one round of Kodama, but it was soooo much fun. The readathon was already a success because I didn't set a book limit or minimum page count restriction on myself. I had a stack to choose from and read what I wanted when I wanted to. All day! Success! I think I also managed to post about 7 readathon themed posts on IG and this will be the 3rd blog post. There was also a donation made to Room to Read, and I honestly didn't know about  that until the last minute so I gave what I thought was fair. I'll be better prepared in October! The Stuff ...

I woke up at 7:55 this morning and JUMPED into the readathon. I have faced several setbacks such as trying to read before the morning coffee had kicked in (words? What are words?), a storm blew through last night that left debris all over my outdoor reading"lounge" and that all had to be cleaned, and my Kindle is currently on "gasping for life" battery-wise. I'm taking a break to recharge the device and myself mentally as I meditate mostly every day and I skipped it this morning. So far I have finished 2 graphic novels, one novel, a short story, and am about 25% in on a Kij Johnson novella. After a break, and some lunch, I will get back up to speed. That is my reading level check in but what I am REALLY accomplishing is spending a whole day reading! I have found my new favorite short story of 2017- The City Born Great by NK Jemisin. Can I just take a minute here and say how grateful I am to live in a world (and a dimension) in which N.K. Jemisin not only ...

Reading | by Moyan_Brenn Reading | by Moyan_Brenn via Flickr This being my first readathon, I thought perhaps I should list my goals because I tend to forget what the big picture is. I can just imagine me  around 2pm on Saturday, running up and down my street sceaming "Read ALL the books!" In order to keep things sane, I want to set some goals for myself. I began preparing by watching a lot of vloggers on Youtube lay out their TBR's. This was awesome because I realize now that the readathon is a lot looser in structure then I originally thought. For example, I see a lot of readers who are working on finishing a novel but stopping with a 100 pages or more to go with the goal of finishing during the Readathon. Okay! That works for me. The bad side effect of watching the videos is that I keep adding up more and more titles to my own TBR. Sigh. The Goals I can read as much or as little as I want. The point here, for me, is to actually enjoy a full 24 hours of doi...