Happy Friday, shipmates! It’s Alex, and today I have two new releases and two recent indie releases for you. I’m particularly excited about Praiseworthy since the author is Waanyi (Aboriginal Australian), and I feel like we haven’t gotten to see a lot of Waanyi writing in SFF so far. Give me more perspectives! There’s a lot of really cool stuff coming our way in February in general, and this is just the beginning.
2024 is the tenth year of the Read Harder Challenge! Join us as we make our way through 24 tasks meant to expand our reading horizons and diversify our TBRs. To get book recommendations for each task, sign up for the Read Harder newsletter. We’ll also keep you informed about other cool reading challenges, readathons, and more across the bookish internet. If you become a paid subscriber, you get even more recommendations plus community features, where you can connect with a community of passionate, like-minded readers in a cozy and supportive corner of the internet. Sign up today!
Let’s make the world a better place, together. Here are two places to start: Palestinian Children’s Relief Fund, which provides medical and humanitarian relief to children in the Middle East regardless of nationality, religion, or political affiliation; and Ernesto’s Sanctuary, a cat sanctuary and animal rescue in Syria that is near and dear to my heart.
Bookish Goods
Laminated Celestial Bookmarks by SeeknfindCreations
I am a sucker for shiny things and pretty pictures, so these bookmarks certainly hit me right where I live. They’re laminated, too, to make them more durable! $13.
New Releases
Tales of the Celestial Kingdom by Sue Lynn Tan
This book contains nine short stories, seven of which have never been published elsewhere, each about the Celestial Kingdom we visited in Daughter of the Moon Goddess. Even better, it contains illustrations by Kelly Chong!
Crucible of Chaos by Sebastien de Castell
Greatcoats are the king’s personal investigators of all things supernatural, magistrates who specialize in sword fighting. Estevar is one such Greatcoat, dispatched to an abbey after a frantic message from the abbot who is trying to deal with the monks warring from within over a new pantheon of gods starting. But Estevar has problems beyond a bunch of mad, violent monks. He’s got a near-fatal sword wound he’s trying to nurse along, a diabolical inquisitor dogging him, and a young woman who keeps popping up and claiming to be his ally when she’s likely anything but.
For a more comprehensive list of new releases, check out our New Books newsletter.
Riot Recommendations
Here are a couple of recent indie releases that sound absolutely fascinating!
Praiseworthy by Alexis Wright
A mysterious cloud descends on a small town in northern Australia, bringing with it ecological catastrophe—and a gathering of the ancestors. The Aboriginal residents of the town react in different ways. One sees donkeys as a solution to both the climate crisis and the economic dependency the Aboriginal people labor under. His wife follows butterflies and tries to find a way for her family to be repatriated to China. Meanwhile, their sons court death, driven by the nightmare or dream of being white and powerful.
Triangulum by Subodhana Wijeyeratne
For three thousand years, the garden world of Prithvi has been kept safe by the godlike Dawn and her Golden Swarm, while the Red Fleet, under her nephew, watches over the Nine Worlds. But nothing lasts forever, and Night, Dawn’s estranged sister, is coming to right an ancient wrong and topple the old order. The people of the worlds will soon find out that everything they thought they knew about the order, about those who rule them, is terribly wrong.
See you, space pirates. If you’d like to know more about my secret plans to dominate the seas and skies, you can catch me over at my personal site.