Reading has taken a back seat to gardening this month. Still...


Stories:

***** "Stonefather" by Orson Scott Card
** "Wrenning Day" by Andrew Bryant
*** "Too Climb a Flat Mountain" by G. David Nordley
*** "Summer in Paris, Light from the Sky" by Ken Scholes


QuickTakes:

"Stonefather" by Orson Scott Card (Wizards): a novella-length appetizer for Card's Mithermages series; exemplary world-building turns this adolescent-comes-into-his power story into something special

"Too Climb a Flat Mountain" (Analog): first part of readable but pretty routine marooned-on-an-alien planet novella. The interest comes almost entirely from the planet itself, which was constructed in the shape of a cube, presumably by some advanced alien species. (An homage to Ringworld, perhaps?)


My ratings:
***** excellent: memorable, satisfying, a pleasure to read
**** very good: well written, good read
*** good: readable, engaging, but not very memorable or exciting for me
** sub-par: a rough read, I found it flawed 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)