Books:
**** Cheek by Jowl by Ursula K. LeGuin
**** Revision and Self-Editing by James Scott Bell
*** Zen in the Art of Writing by Ray Bradbury
**** Beginnings, Middles, and Ends by Nancy Kress
**** Rhetorics of Fantasy by Farah Mendlesohn

Stories:
**** "Parasite" by Jeremy Shipp
*** "Camp" by Jeremy Shipp
** "Trout" by Jeremy Shipp
** "The Great Armada" by Brian Stableford

Quick Takes:
Rhetorics of Fantasy by Farah Mendlesohn: Edifying and intriguing look at patterns of story-telling within the fantasy genre. Mendlesohn identifies four broad categories: portal/quest, immersion, intrusion, and liminal - each with its own implied rules of narrative and exposition. It's heavy going at times (academic style, and analyses of a large number of works), but well worth reading for the serious student of the genre.

Cheek by Jowl by Ursula K. LeGuin: An engaging and provocative collection of essays on fantasy by one of the true greats in the field. The title essay is the longest and strongest: an analysis of animals in fantasy, and a categorization of the various ways animals are depicted in the genre. Good stuff.

Reviews of the three books on writing are posted on my main site www.TomLWaters.com/

"The Great Armada" by Brian Stableford (Asimov's): This alternate-history novella is the last installment in a four part series. The Earth  has become the focus of a galactic political intrigue involving insects, arachnids, planet-scale communal minds, ethereals, and who knows what else. Figures like Francis Bacon, Walter Raleigh, John Dee—well, actually, just about every personage of note from 16th centurey England—are caught up in this galactic space opera. Didn't work for me. The characters seem devoid of personality and motivation, and have so little connection to their historical counterparts that the alternate-history angle seems pointless. A struggle to get through this one.


My ratings:
***** excellent: memorable, satisfying, a pleasure to read
**** very good: well written, good read, perhaps with small flaws or not quite aligned with my personal taste
*** good: readable, engaging, but with some problems or just not memorable or exciting for me
** sub-par: a rough read, either amateurish or just uninteresting to me
* huh? someone published this?

My ratings are part objective appraisal of the writing, part unapologetic personal preference (certain subjects and subgenres just don't appeal to me as much as others)