I’d read this as a kid — or, well, at least the first book — and remembered enjoying it, but had forgotten quite how fun and funny it was at the beginning, and how serious and philosophical it gets by the end. This was a real treat to re-read, and I’m sure I got much more of it as an adult than I would have as a kid. Definitely deserves its place as an excellent version of Arthurian fantasy.

An odd book, with elements that reminded me of other media I’ve enjoyed (the film Dark City, Michael Ende’s Momo), but which ultimately didn’t satisfy me. Hoping I’ll like the #PKDickAward nominated sequel more.

16-year-old Tilly must deal with an overbearing mother, boarding school ups and downs, and choosing between what’s expected of her and what actually interests her. A fun, light Trek YA novel.

Two things stuck out to me regarding the overall Discovery universe (very minor spoilers for this book):

1. The captain of the Starfleet vessel the Dorothy Garrod at one point is exercising wearing a t-shirt emblazoned with "Dotty". Assumedly, this equates to the Discovery's crew having "DISCO" on their exercise duds — so this is the first (?) confirmation that these exercise t-shirts with cute nicknames likely extend throughout the fleet. I wonder what the Enterprise's nickname is?

2. The Dorothy Garrod also has what's described as a "holodeck" where characters are going mountain climbing. While I'm becoming more accepting of holography being far more prevalent in the Trek universe than we've seen to this point (as a side effect of the show being produced in a time where such special effects are relatively inexpensive and practical), the early episodes of TNG made a big point of having the characters being surprised by and marveling at the Enterprise-D's holodeck. If holodecks were in use in Discovery's time (or even slightly before, as this novel is set a few years pre-Discovery), would the TNG crew really be that surprised by them? I suppose this could be an early generation, not-as-realistic holodeck, but it still seems to be rather glaringly anachronistic for the Trek universe.

Much like the first in this series, there are a lot of interesting ideas, in this case about stories, narratives, and our relationships with them…yet it simply didn’t resonate with me at all.

With both of these, I’ve felt like I should enjoy them more than I do, and keep finding passages and ideas that strike me as being intellectually and conceptually interesting. But there’s no emotional connection, and because of that, I’m simply not invested.

The main character doesn’t seem to have much purpose beyond moving from plot point to plot point and getting repeatedly physically abused in the process. It feels like the author had these ideas, and wanted to wrap them in the trappings of a noir environment, but wasn’t able to come up with anything for the protagonist other than the bare minimum stereotype skeleton for a noir private eye. Without that, the events he encounters are just things that happen, but not things I ever really cared about. And that ended up being disappointing, since there really are a lot of neat concepts there to work with.

Some of these are funny, many of them are disquieting and leave the reader a little uneasy. I didn’t dislike it, though I’m not sure I can really say that I liked it, either.

Of course, as with any anthology, some stories will work better than others, and which ones go which way will change from person to person. For me, I think “Alien Virus Love Disaster”, “Moonkids”, and “I’m Sorry Your Daughter Got Eaten By a Cougar” were my favorites (or, at least, the ones I found most interesting).

One of the best collections I’ve read in a long time. Fascinating, sometimes haunting stories, not a dud in the bunch, and a definite pleasure throughout.

Favorite stories are tough to narrow down, but include “Requiem”, “Sailing the Antarsa”, and “Indra’s Web”.