I desperately desire to reread All Systems Red, but I’m saving it for last. And I don’t just want to re-read it, I want to experience it differently. I also plan to do the same thing with Binti: Home, which is available via Hoopla. None of my local libraries have purchased the audiobook edition of All Systems Red, so I found it available at a very reasonable cost through the Downpour site. I like their philosophy (see quote below), so I immediately signed up, not with a monthly membership, but just an account that will allow me to purchase DRM-free audiobooks.
We love books, and we believe that you should be able to enjoy your favorite book whenever, wherever, or whatever you are doing. Audiobooks allow that freedom.
— Downpour
Only two of the finalists for the 2018 Best Novella category are not available in audio format – And Then There Were (N-One) and The Black Tides of Haven – so I’ll be reading those via my tablet. The other four I will listen to via Hoopla or Overdrive.
For the 1943 Retro Hugo finalists, I’ve now obtained all the necessary print edition anthologies and will work my way through them as carefully as I can (some of these books are quite old, held together with what looks like a book friendly duct tape but the bindings are nearly shot). As of the writing of this post, I’ve already returned one of the two interlibrary loans I requested.
- Update 4/19/2018: Finished Lester del Rey’s “Nerves” no thanks to a torn/missing/damaged page (p. 90 to be specific) in the anthology Adventures in Time and Space, published in 1946 and being held together with library binding tap.
- Update 4/27/2018: Listened to All Systems Red and started reading The Black Tides of Heaven. Also read The Compleat Werewolf which was much better than I anticipated.
- Update 5/6/2018: Read “Asylm” the week of 4/30/2018 which just leaves the two Heinlein novellas to read for the Retros. I’m still slowly and sporadically reading “The Black Tides of Heaven.”
- Update 5/11/2018: Finished reading “Black Tides of Heaven” this morning. Last one is the 2018 finalists is “Down Among the Sticks and Bones” which I will listen to while travelling next week.
- Update 5/25/2018: Finished reading Down Among the Sticks and Bones earlier this week. Also finished both Heinlein novellas – Waldo is forgettable but he made up for it with The Unpleasant Profession of Jonathan Hoag.
Continue reading “Reading the Best Novella Finalists (2018 & 1943)”