What I'm Currently Reading....

Lots, actually, but here are some recent downloads and a not- so-random read or two!

Murder In The Telephone Exchange by June Wright. Recently re-launched by Sisters In Crime Melbourne but as I couldn't make it to the event in Yarraville I downloaded the ebook and what a fascinating read it is. Melbourne in the late 1940s, when the book was written. It wasn't historical fiction when it was written, but now it brings back a lost world of telephonists working in shifts because people do, after all, make calls all night and someone has to be on the boards, where young single women not living at home Iive  in boarding houses, where everyone smokes and a dead body can be found with face smashed in by a piece of equipment that is gone along with telephone exchanges.

The Dagger Of Dresnia by Satima Flavell, who chose and edited my story in Mythic Resonance. A mother does what she can for her children, even an elvish mother who married a mortal king, including what she suspects might be a Faustian bargain...I'm not far in, but finding it very readable so far.

The Winds Of Marble Arch And Other Stories by Connie Willis, one of my favourite spec fic writers, who not only does sensawunda but has real, believable characters you can care about. It's one of the wonderful SF Gateway series of ebooks, republishing books that are classics but might be out of print. The covers are usually plain yellow, but they're not expensive and you get to read books you may have missed out on in print.  

Wildlife by Fiona Wood. I downloaded it ages ago, but now really must read it since it's on this year's CBCA shortlist. It's a sort of sequel to Six Impossible Things, seen from more than one viewpoint, one of them the sensible girl whom Dan Cereill, hero of the first book introduced to his best friend. A bit darker than the first book, but great reading so far. 

Twelve Stories And A Dream by H.G. Wells, a collection of his short fiction I picked up from  Project Gutenberg, when I felt like rereading "The Truth About Pyecraft", a very silly, entertaining tale about what happens when you aren't precise about what you ask for, in this case the difference between "losing weight" and slimming down.

I've also picked up a paperback of Jim C Hines' novel The Mermaid's Madness from my library because he's coming to Continuum and I'd only read one of his books and thought I might be interviewing him in the YA writers panel(I'm not, I'm doing Ambelin Kwaymullina whose wonderful books I've mentioned on this blog before). It's his wicked take on what might have REALLY happened in the story of the Little Mermaid. In this case, she killed her faithless prince and has since gone insane and killed a lot of other people and it's up to Cinderella, Snow White and Talia the Sleeping Beauty to stop her(and do please read the first book, The Stepsister Scheme, well worth the read)... Jim sold three stories to ASIM earlier in his career, so it will be nice to meet him.    

There's more, plenty more, including some review books, but this will do for a Saturday morning post.