Cheryl’s Comments (group member since Nov 29, 2022)

Cheryl’s comments from the Beyond Reality group.

Book darts. They're slim bits of folded metal shaped like arrows, used to mark passages that I want to reread or quote in my reviews. I store them on my bookmarks and use them in every single book I read (well, not all picture-books, but many of them).

An easel, designed mostly for text or cook books I think, so I can read at the table.

Me too. I have it out from the library, but it's not on the top of the stack.

Lindsey, yes, stories need to be the right length for what they're trying to share.

I tend to like novellas because they can tell a complete story without getting bogged down in a lot extra adventure or side plots.

Novelettes generally should be trimmed to actual short stories, in my experience.

I have finished Carbide Tipped Pens: Seventeen Tales of Hard Science Fiction and I found it solid enough to recommend to fans of the classics, to readers who like a story to have a point.

Yes, I get on the anticipatory hold list at the library. I should pre-order from my favorite, Michael Perry, because I know I'll probably want to get it eventually and I've heard that the buzz helps.

Dawn wrote: "Huh. I'm not sure there is anything surprising on my shelves. ... /Louise Brooks..."

Ah! I was wondering....

Normally I like 'nice' stories, about good people. Hope-punk etc. But because I'm just really into Fredric Brown I also own some noir mysteries, whatever I could find by him, for example The Screaming Mimi and The Far Cry. I hope to reread them soonish.

Right now I have three short story collections on my stack, as it happens. Carbide Tipped Pens: Seventeen Tales of Hard Science Fiction from the library just for fun. Great Science Fiction Stories by the World's Great Scientists which isn't as old as it looks and should have some good ones.

And Letter to a Stranger: Essays to the Ones Who Haunt Us which is supposedly kinda like tiny memoirs but most everything that happens in most of them is in the head of each writer; they really don't know who they met at all. I cry bs, or at least 'fictionalized.'

I very much enjoyed Halcyon Years but everyone says it's not typical of Reynolds. I've since tried his novella The Six Directions of Space and that doesn't make me want more. I'm not likely to try too hard in the future to find something he's done about something I'm interested in. Oh well.

I finally looked up Confit. Now those British children's books I used to read make more sense! (For some reason I always thought it was some sort of sweet.)

I love the good ones. Especially the classics from the old days of SF, the ones that explore an idea. All Summer in a Day, Harrison Bergeron, etc. Lester del Rey, Murray Leinster, etc. Asimov's Robot stories.

I just enjoyed a Queer YA anthology, lots of good ones in All Out: The No-Longer-Secret Stories of Queer Teens throughout the Ages. (Historical fiction, but some have elements of magic.)

These are two I actually sought out, found, shelved, and have since let collect dust. Shame on me.

For fantasy, The Magic Three of Solatia by Jane Yolen. Reviewer Andrea shelved it as obsessed-with-as-a-kid and reviewer River says "A little dated but it's definitely firmly in the box of 'classic beginner feel-good fantasy'...." But it doesn't look juvenile to me, as I pick up my copy from the shelf.

Rainbows End by Vernor Vinge is, unfortunately, already 20 years old and is meant to be near-future. But I think it would be very interesting to see what's happened, or not happened.... (One thing Vinge was optimistic about was that we'd find a cure for Alzheimer's. Too bad.)

Thanks, all, for the recs!

Speaking for myself, not actually. Ruby Red, who came on second, also gets the description 'scarlet' which is such a distinct word it stuck in my mind.

In fact the whole thing is surprisingly un-confusing, imo.

I'm sure Reynolds chose the ship name carefully so I looked it up. Besides the adjective form more familiar, there's a noun form: "a mythical bird said by ancient writers to breed in a nest floating at sea at the winter solstice, charming the wind and waves into calm."

Perfect. I will look for more by Reynolds. Any favorite recommendations, given that I liked this one?

Hm. I don't know if I'd take it so far as to say parody. I mean, there were certainly funny bits. But I think of it more as an homage. I liked it a *lot* more than I expected to. I like the complex characters, the world-building, the fact that I could (usually) follow along on the mysteries. And I am so thankful for the ending working out as it did.

As to The Undertaking. "Purpose of Undertaking is not to protect people from knowledge of Halcyon's condition, it is to protect families from consequences of original crimes. You do not care about feelings of people, only own necks. People are sheep." Also, Ruby Purple spoke to all the people, revealing the crimes of the family. That is why Yuri had to be heroic again, to face the pitchfork-mob to get away from the families' meeting and get Lemmy to hospital.

(I used to read to my husband, mostly SF that we both had on our to-read lists. I think when he would no longer make the time, that was the beginning of the end of us being close.)

Clever, Kathi. I've more than I need; maybe I want to do something like that too.

Of course I read to all three of mine when they were young. My youngest and I reunited to read first all the Ramona Quimby books, then all the Narnia ones, after he became able to read them on his own. I'm not sure why, but I sure do enjoy the memory.

I'd be surprised if I wasn't read to when I was little, but like Shel I would have been too little to actually remember. Fortunately my mother is still alive; I'll have to ask her.

Tomislav wrote: "The back cover of the copy I am reading (Orbit, Hachette Book Group, First U.S. Edition: January 2026) says "Yuri is hired by a mysterious woman, called Ruby Red, to investigate a death in one of H..."

Sounds like the kind of story that'll be complicated enough without confusable names....

My hold is in already too so I'll probably start it very soon.