I did a terrible job of keeping records for September; I know there are things I forgot to put on this list. But all the ones I’m thinking of are the books I started and haven’t quite finished. (Rather a lot of those. But not because they’re bad; just because I’m not done with them yet. So that’s good, I guess.)

Demon Drums, Carol Severance. Recommended by maladaptive. First in a trilogy, and I picked them up because they’re quasi-Polynesian fantasy. The writing is a little bit rough, and I’m not sure the magic system operates on any underlying principle other than “the characters can do what the author needs them to, when she needs it,” but there’s still a lot in here to like. Semi-retired warrior woman protagonist who’s bonded with a kind of nasty shark god, young woman with more magical power than she really knows how to handle, shapechanging pretty boy from the sea, death as a metaphysically dangerous event, drums made from tattooed human skin. (Okay, those last aren’t something you like, per se, since they’re what the bad guys are using. But the idea is nifty.) These are available as ebooks, if that sounds interesting to you.

Storm Caller, Carol Severance. Second in the trilogy. Does some very good (and distubing) stuff with family conflict, as Iuti Mano’s brothers and mother take, shall we say, serious issue with something she did in the previous book. My main gripe here was that I expected the book to deliver some kind of answer as to what was up with Tarawe’s power — in fact, I had a pet theory that I totally thought was going to prove true — but as it turns out, nope, no answer at all, whether mine or another. Possibly I’ll get it in the third book, which I’m in the middle of reading, but I kind of suspect I won’t. Still, good conflicts, volcanic goddess, island of crazy bird people, if that sounds like your cup of tea then check this out.

The Tropic of Serpents, Marie Brennan. This was a month of a lot of proofreading, as I also went through most (but not all) of The Book of Water for L5R. But anyway, read through this one with a fine-toothed comb, and now it’s one step closer to being a Real Book. (In fact, ARCs are supposed to show up here any day now.)

Traveling for most of this month, which means I should probably stock up on ebooks. I’m thinking Rivers of London will be at the top of the list, since I heard part of it at Milk and Cookies, and — as many people had told me I would — kind of fell in love with the London geekery on the spot. (Trufact: when the protagonist mentioned the plaque on the side of St. Paul’s Covent Garden about how the first plague victim from 1665 was buried in their churchyard, I thought, “huh, I didn’t know that. But it makes sense; weren’t the early deaths concentrated around Long Acre?” Then I mentally facepalmed and agreed that, yes, I was the right kind of nerd for that book.)