March 31, 2026

Books to Read While the Algae Grow in Your Fur, March 2026

Attention conservation notice: I have no taste.

Rachel Neumeier, This Hour, Our Vigil
Mind candy fantasy; A sequel to the Death's Lady books (in my backlog), where good things happen to our favorite characters, without any special drama. If I say it reads a bit like fanfic for Neumeier's own work, that sounds like I'm damning it, but I actually enjoyed it, because, I wanted good things to happen for those characters, who'd had drama enough and to spare. Utterly pointless if you have not read the earlier books. §
Doris Piserchia, A Billion Days of Earth
Mind candy science fiction, from 1976. This is an especially weird member of the Dying Earth genre. It's a billion days (= a few million years) in the future, and the descendants of human beings are known as "gods", while evolved (possibly uplifted) rats think of themselves as Homo sapiens. One of those wakes Something which I think is an old psycho-bio-weapon that preys on unconscious desires and assimilates its victims into further bits of its silvery, amorphous self. Apocalypse ensues, as viewed by an unusually level-headed rat-man, among others. It's not pleasant, but it is skillful, and strange, and makes me interested in Piserchia's other books. §
(I picked this up on 26 July 2001, in a bookstore in Flagstaff which no longer exists...)

Books to Read While the Algae Grow in Your Fur; Scientifiction and Fantastica

Posted at March 31, 2026 23:59 | permanent link

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