Happy Friday, shipmates! It’s Alex, and I’ve got a couple more new releases for you, and basically the rest of the newsletter is the mood board for my current video game brain worms — I appreciate you humoring me on this. I’ve had a great week that’s been mostly staycation, so to be honest we’re all lucky I even remembered what day it is to write you this dispatch. It’s strange how quickly time becomes fake when you’re on vacation, isn’t it? I hope you all have had a great week regardless of what you’ve been up to! Stay safe out there, space pirates, and I’ll see you on Tuesday.
Looking for fascinating stories, informed takes, useful advice, and more from experts in the world of books and reading? Sign up for Book Riot’s newest newsletter, The Deep Dive, to get exclusive content delivered to your inbox. Subscribe and choose your membership level today at bookriot.substack.com.
Let’s make the world a better place, together. Here’s somewhere to start: NDN Collective and Jane’s Due Process.
Bookish Goods
Cyberpunk City Skyline Print by SlightlyScorchedUS
Sometimes you just want a heckin’ cool, colorful, science fiction-y art print. And here’s the one I’m currently in the mood for — though the picture to the left is just a slice of the full print, so you should check it out in full. $43
New Releases
She Is a Haunting by Trang Thanh Tran
Jade Nguyen comes to Vietnam to visit her estranged father with one goal in mind: pretend to be straight, Vietnamese, and American enough to get the money for college tuition out of him that he’s holding over her head. But the French colonial house Ba is restoring has an eerie air and other plans for her, starting with strange noises and sensations, and soon escalating to a ghostly bride who gives her a simple but cryptic warning: Don’t eat. If Jade is brave enough, she may be able to save her family…this time.
Nightbirds by Kate J. Armstrong
In Simta, women’s magic is outlawed. The few who have the gift are called Nightbirds, and jealously guarded by the Great Houses thanks to their most important skill: the ability to gift their magic to another with a kiss. Nightbirds spend a year bestowing their magic on those who can pay well, and then are expected to be married into a Great House and settle down to become the mothers of the next generation before their lose their powers. But this Season’s Nightbirds find themselves at the center of a political plot that may well expose them to a church that would very much like to kill them — and reveals to them the deepest secret of the Nightbirds. There are more girls like them, and they are far more powerful than they’ve been allowed to discover.
For a more comprehensive list, check out our New Books newsletter.
Riot Recommendations
I’ve been doing nothing but playing Destiny 2: Lightfall for the last 48 hours, so you will have to forgive me if that’s what I’ve got on the brain. So here are two books that put me in mind of the technicolor feel of the world I’ve been in!
Nexus by Ramez Naam
This book starts off a trilogy that posits a nano-drug called Nexus that slowly upgrades human brains until we all become cybernetic and inextricably interlinked. Of course, along the way there’s espionage and danger and high stakes politics…but the envisioning of a (cybernetic yet optimistic) human future with interconnectedness really strikes a cord with me right now!
Runtime by S.B. Divya
The Minerva Sierra Challenge is like the Tour de France for cyborgs, a playground for the rich and those with massive corporate sponsorships if they want even a hope of winning. Marmeg Guinto is neither rich nor does she have sponsorships; she just has the money she was supposed to use to pay for nursing school and the parts she’s dug out of rich people’s garbage. But she isn’t going to let that stop her, not when it’s also the big chance for a better life for both herself and her brother. I love this book for its technological future that is very “cyber” without being dystopic nor utopic, something very on my mind right now.
See you, space pirates. If you’d like to know more about my secret plans to dominate the seas and skies, you can catch me over at my personal site.