I don't mean to nitpick, Tom, but is this really your plan?

Beforeigners is an HBO show set in Norway, 7 years after people from earlier time periods started appearing in numbers. Meret turned me on to it and it is amazing. Not only are there a ton of witty details about what life would be like, it also has a charismatic lead and some interesting things to say both about (1) immigration/anti-immigrant sentiment and (2) how people get inured to previously unbelievable and you-would-have-thought-intolerable situations, which has obvious relevance to the current situation. People are arriving from a thousand years ago! Ugh, is that still happening? The female lead was a Viking (but we don't use that term any more) shieldmaiden, and warriors aren't supposed to become police officers, so she just told them she was a farmwife, and they had no idea how to evaluate that claim so they believed her. Does have police work, but not US police work, so I hope it's tolerable?

My daughter and I also powered through the new She-Ra, which was great (though I think I still like Steven Universe better). Next up: new season of Lucifer, then probably Legend of Korra.


Veronica Roth, The Chosen Ones: ( after the victory )
K.M. Szpara, Docile: ( slavefic )
T. Kingfisher, A Wizard’s Guide to Defensive Baking: ( weaponized dough )
Stephen King, If It Bleeds: ( story collection/more Holly Gibney )
The Year’s Best Science Fiction 2019, ed. Jonathan Strahan. ( Good stuff )
Tasha Suri, Empire of Sand: ( desert magic )
Edited By, ed. Ellen Datlow: ( prolific editor )
Best of British Fantasy 2019: ( horror creeps into fantasy )
K.B. Wagers, A Pale Light in the Black: ( space adventure with games )
K.B. Wagers, After the Crown:( gunrunner turned Empress )
Joe Hill & Gabriel Rodriguez, Locke & Key: Welcome to Lovecraft:( mysterious keys )

I got a lovely Killjoys fic for Yuletide! Breadcrumbs takes off from where canon stopped, showing various characters reacting to the memory wipe and Lucy saving the day.

I wrote an iZombie story: Completely Frank Liv,  featuring Clive and Liv undercover as a couple during Season 1, though Liv ends up more exposed than undercover.

KJ Charles, The Ruin of Gabriel Ashleigh: ( cute short story )
Genevieve Cogman, The Mortal Word: ( Dragon murder! )Ramsey Campbell, Think Yourself Lucky: ( writing is reality )
Welcome to Dystopia, ed. Gordon van Gelder.  ( sf for the Trump age )
Sam J. Miller, Blackfish City: ( climate changes, people don't )
R.F. Kuang, The Poppy War: ( all the warnings )
Joseph Bruchac, Killer of Enemies: ( post-apocalyptic Native fantasy )
Carol Berg, Flesh and Spirit: ( drug addiction fantasy )
Ilana C. Myer, Last Song Before Night:( music fantasy )
William Alexander, Ambassador: ( YA immigration/sf )
Jacqueline Carey, Starless: ( save the world fantasy )

Not One of Us: Stories of Aliens on Earth, ed. Neil Clarke.  ( sf and humanity )
Kim Stanley Robinson, Red Moon: ( the moon with Chinese characteristics )

( last 2 weeks of Chuck )

Pro tip: when in the course of work you have to Google for images of the Naked Cowgirl, remember that you have SafeSearch turned off.

( The Middle East, women's writing, Ted Chiang, Stephen King, magic CSI, Lois McMaster Bujold )

Yeah, not as enticing as "Girls, girls, girls" -- or really, given my assumed audience, "boys, boys, boys." But I have many more books than boys (and I'm not sharing him). Fantasy and science fiction.

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