I signed up for the Dewey's 24 Hour Readathon because I needed something to nudge my reading this year. I've been suffering a weird slump this year where I could start books fine, but couldn't finish them. My plan was to finishing some pesky books on my TBR shelf and maybe mixing in some short stories/ graphic novels, if I was lagging.
What I managed to finish:
1. Mary Robinette Kowal's Lady Astronaut of Mars is her bittersweet Hugo Award nominated novelette. This felt strangely timely now thinking about my aging family members.
2. The Mask of the Red Panda TPB: I've listened to a lot of Decoder Ring Theatre's Red Panda Adventures audio show, so it was easy to "hear" the main characters. What is harder to adjust to is the artwork, since the "theatre of the mind" means you provide how you think the characters and world should look like. Best example was Max Falconi aka the Stranger who I pictured more as a Zatara/Mandrake type, not the Zorro half mask. As the Red Panda, it's a "interesting" problem to have!
3. Robin Bridges' "Unfailing Light", the second book in her Katerina Chronicles, is set in a fantasy embued version of 19th century Russian court of the Romanovs. This has stubbornly been on my TBR pile for awhile, so I finished the last fifty-sixty pages of it today. I also started book three "The Morning Star" but don't anticipate finishing it tonight.
4. Seanan McGuire's "Ghosts of Bourbon Street" is a short story set in her Incryptid universe featuring the stars of the first two books on a road trip to meet the family... if your family is slightly less traditional than most. Along the way, they get a peek at the ghost world. This is a great setup for "Sparrow Hill Road", although you might want to read it after "Half Off Ragnarok".
