Review of "Feed Them Silence" (5 stars): Devastating
#sffbookclub
I really like novellas for #SFFBookClub.
Don't get me wrong, I love a thiccass tome, but it's hard (for me) to digest one and excrete any kind of coherent thoughts about its entirety, especially if it's out of my comfort zone on some axes - and a big part of the appeal of a reading club is to be drawn out of my comfort zones.
Review of "Feed Them Silence" (4 stars): Feed Them Silence
Feed Them Silence review with spoilers, because I can't figure out how to do it without
It would be pretty hard to be married to somebody that I felt like their whole career was unethical
(comment on Feed Them Silence)
"The portable surgery unit hulked at the edge of a tract field, ringed by four-byfours and a lone Jeep."
— Lee Mandelo: Feed Them Silence
Carless me bringing copies of The Crooked Medium's Guide to Murder, for signing at #WordFantasy2025 (not at big signing session). Stop me and buy one for all your sapphic spiritualist skullduggery.
Or it can be delivered signed to your home, or via eBook. Details on my website.
#fantasy #sapphic #murder #mystery #womensleuths #British #books #SFFbookclub
The #SFFBookClub selection for November 2025
(comment on Feed Them Silence)
Review of "A Season of Monstrous Conceptions" (5 stars): A surprisingly fun exploration of some heavy themes
About halfway through and I have mixed feelings about this book. I find the plot such as there is one quite interesting and a very good vehicle for dissecting/mocking the 2010s-2020s turn to fascism. And I like the writing itself a lot. But Gospodinov seems perpetually unsure whether he's writing a novel or an essay.
The thing that's keeping me going is that he's a good enough writer and observer for it to be an enjoyable essay, but I am increasingly finding myself wanting the essayish digressions to get shorter so the plot can move more.
(comment on Time Shelter)
Ok, I think I'm putting this down now - it has become a slog. I took a little break, thinking maybe I just needed a change of pace, but I'm just not into it.
I'm reminded a bit of when, having loved The Historian, I picked up The Shadow Land, also by Elizabeth Kostova. I spent much of the novel anticipating how the surreal elements were going to be introduced, only to eventually realize that it was just a "normal" mystery story (coincidentally also set in / revolving around Bulgaria).
Some of the concepts are intriguing, but they don't seem to be going anywhere (so far).
(comment on Time Shelter)
"Dying has gotten to be quite expensive."
— Georgi Gospodinov, Angela Rodel: Time Shelter
"So tell me, he started in . . . is Denmark still a prison?"
— Georgi Gospodinov, Angela Rodel: Time Shelter
👀
"Death, you’ll say, yes, of course, death is his brother, but old age is the monster."
— Georgi Gospodinov, Angela Rodel: Time Shelter
"Without being able to formulate it clearly, he senses that if no one remembers, then everything is permissible."
— Georgi Gospodinov, Angela Rodel: Time Shelter
this is a statement about the current geopolitical landscape
"There is no time machine except the human being."
— Georgi Gospodinov, Angela Rodel: Time Shelter
"Boredom is the emblem of this city. Here Canetti, Joyce, Dürrenmatt, Frisch, and even Thomas Mann have been bored."
— Georgi Gospodinov, Angela Rodel: Time Shelter
"At one point they tried to calculate when time began, when exactly the earth had been created."
— Georgi Gospodinov, Angela Rodel: Time Shelter
Great news for SFF fans: https://wandering.shop/@jasonsanford/115334542505758599
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