Author Archives: lydias

About lydias

I'm a sci-fi writer who loves lifting weights and hates eating Brussels sprouts.

Wednesday Weekly Blogging Challenge: Favourite Things to Do in the Summer

Hosted by Long and Short Reviews.

Click here to read everyone else’s replies to this week’s question and to read everyone else’s replies to this week’s question and here to see the full list of topics for the year.

I know we’ve had this theme for WWBC in the past at least once, but I’m purposefully not looking up my old post or posts about it. Let’s see what my brain comes up with this time.

What do I like to do during the summer?

A black Labrador retriever who is wearing a rainbow-themed fuzzy faux feather wrap around his neck. Is this from a Pride Parade, perhaps? He looks interested in whatever he’s peering at. Eating fresh, local produce. There are a limited number of options for Canadian produce between about November and April or May, and most of those involve apples, cabbage, or other root vegetables. Due to this, I relish all of the seasonal and often more delicate foods that are abundant the rest of the year. Yay for berries, stone fruit, tomatoes, and more!

Going swimming. Yes, some Canadians enjoy a nice Polar Plunge (briefly swimming or wading in the Great Lakes in the dead of winter), but I am so not one of them. Give me sunlight on my skin and enough time for the summer heat to actually warm up the water to non-freezing temperatures before I’ll even think about dipping my toes in at a beach or pool.

Taking morning walks. Even on hot days, the weather can still be decent if you go outside before the sun has warmed up everything too much.  Evening walks can be nice, too, depending on the high temperature of the day.

Attending festivals and parades. I love being surrounded by happy people while celebrating books, cultural events, various minority groups, food, music, or other uplifting topics. You’ll often see dogs walking around with their people at these events, too! I like to pretend that everyone’s dogs know exactly who or what is being celebrated and wholeheartedly endorse it.

Travelling lightly. That is to say, in the summer there’s no need for a winter jacket, mittens,  hat,  scarf, long underwear, or any other extra stuff to remember to put on when I’m out and about. I love walking around in shorts, sneakers, and a t-shirt with nothing to carry in my hands other than maybe a bottle of water.

Visiting nature. I think you all could probably guess I’d pick this. Summer can be tricky for park visits depending on the heat and humidity levels and what the air quality index looks like, but on the cooler and less smoky days* I’m definitely up for a picnic, a few rounds of nature or other types of photography, some sightseeing, or a stroll through a forest or flower garden.

*Canada, and I believe many parts of the U.S. as well, have had massive forest fires in recent years during the summer. This can make the air quality too poor for exercising or non-essential outdoor time depending on how bad things get.

So this is my list. What can I say other than I’m easy to please and can amuse myself on a budget. 🙂

 

14 Comments

Filed under Blog Hops, Personal Life

Top Ten Tuesday: Bookish Wishes


Hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl

I am blessed to have access to a wonderful public library system that has most of the books I want to read, so I will once again pick wishes that are more whimsical in nature.

Dandelion seeds being blown away by the wind from a mature dandelion in a grassy field. My bookish wishes are as follows:

1) Just like I mentioned last time, I wish the Toronto Public Library could raise their hold limit for ebooks. They cut it in half last autumn, probably due to how expensive ebooks are. If only such decisions were never necessary.

2) A comfortable bench in the shade to sit on at the park on a day that isn’t too hot or humid. I love hearing birds chirp and leaves rustle while I read.

3) Satisfying and logical endings for every series. It’s irritating when the last book or books in a series are never written or when they are eventually released but totally ignore the foreshadowing and character development from earlier instalments.

4) Tasty new dairy-free treats at my favourite coffee shops…and ideally a shaded empty table on their patios so I can sit and watch friendly people and dogs pass by as I eat, drink, and read.

5) Growth for the bookish community in general and Top Ten Tuesday in particular. The more readers, reviewers, and bloggers we have, the better if you ask me!

6) More time for blog hopping. I am so behind on commenting on other people’s posts it’s not even funny.

7) New books being released from everyone’s favourite authors. I want us all of to be excited for what is to come.

8) Ideas for blog posts. I haven’t any creative ones in a while, so thank goodness for blog hops like Top Ten Tuesday and the Wednesday Weekly Blogging Challenge.

9) More virtual bookish events. If anyone knows of any, please share!

10) More bookish friends. I’m casting my net widely.

I wonder if anyone else will take a similar approach this week?

56 Comments

Filed under Blog Hops

A Review of Mob Lodge

Book cover for Mob Lodge by Krrish Anand. Image on cover is a black and white drawing of various characters from Minecraft like the protagonist, a skeleton, an enderman, and an iron golem. They are all standing together but walking in different directions. Title: Mob Lodge

Author: Krrish Anand

Publisher: Self-Published

Publication Date: April 15, 2025

Genres: Fantasy, LGBTQ+, Contemporary

Length: 160 pages

Source: I received a free copy from the author.

Rating: 5 Stars

Blurb: 

The world has ended, but people still have to survive. Enter Grim – an unapologetically nihilist, asexual, transmasc z-ennial with the mouth of a sailor and the visual acuity of a naked mole rat – and his adolescent naturalist grandson, Bug. When survival is just too damn boring, Grim recalls life from before the nukes dropped; which, he asserts, was much, much harder back then.

Content Warning:  Murder and death.

Review: 

Heroes come in all shapes and sizes.

I adored the character development in this piece, but I can’t go into much detail about it without giving away some fantastic plot twists. Honestly, this was one of the biggest reasons why I chose a five star rating. There was plenty of space left for nuance, and characters who behaved one way in the game were often presented quite differently in this novel which gave this reader the chance to see that boxy, flat world from perspectives I hadn’t spent much time pondering in the past as well as helped to explain why they behaved the way they did once the heavier action elements of the storyline kicked in. The various layers of meaning in their behaviour kept my attention levels high from beginning to end and made me want to go start a new world and build a house in it again. If only I could bring some of these characters with me into my world!

Death in the Minecraft universe isn’t handled the same way as it would be in our world. This was a nice Easter egg for fans of the game who have already had their character die in it, but I don’t want to provide too many spoilers for anyone who isn’t already familiar with this feature. What I can say is that this feature provided plenty of opportunities for the characters to grow and change as individuals on their quest. I smiled and nodded along as they faced insurmountable odds and did everything they could to help each other along the way.

The plot twists were exciting and numerous. Just like while playing the game, I would think I knew what would happen next only to be surprised by something I didn’t see coming.  This is the kind of writing style that makes me want to come back for more, especially for a genre like fantasy that I’ve read so extensively. It’s not always easy to find fresh spins to put on common tropes, but the author did a good job here of both meeting this reader’s expectations of how the storyline would go and delighting me with creative applications of the sorts of conflicts, characters, and settings I knew I was almost certainly going to read about.

I’d strongly recommend playing Minecraft before reading this book as the narrator assumes their audience already knows all about the lore of this world.

Mob Lodge was wildly imaginative and made me want to play Minecraft again!

 

 

Leave a Comment

Filed under Science Fiction and Fantasy

Wednesday Weekly Blogging Challenge: Favourite Book Covers and Why

Hosted by Long and Short Reviews.

Click here to read everyone else’s replies to this week’s question and to read everyone else’s replies to this week’s question and here to see the full list of topics for the year.

A bouquet of little white flowers - possibly of the dogwood variety - lying on an antique hardcover book. The book’s cover is brown and looks like it may have once had a floral design on it. There are scratches and little pieces missing here and there on the cover, though, so it’s hard to tell for sure. Honestly, I’m a little picky about how blurbs and the first few pages of a tale are written and what is or isn’t included in them, but book covers themselves aren’t as important to me. There are many different styles I like or even love and only a few that would deter me from giving something a try.

My favourite types of covers are the ones that are just a little jarring or surprising in a good way for the viewer. That is to say, you glance at them and wonder what the heck in going on in that scene.

Here are some examples of what I mean:

Book cover for The Handmaid’s Tale (The Handmaid's Tale, #1) by Margaret Atwood. Image on cover shows two women wearing long red dresses and white hats that cover their faces. They are walking beside a tall brick wall in an otherwise desolate scene.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Handmaid’s Tale (The Handmaid’s Tale, #1) by Margaret Atwood

I knew absolutely nothing about this story when I picked it up, but the cover made me feel nervous about their strange clothing and curious about where they were going.

 

Book cover for Howl’s Moving Castle (Howl’s Moving Castle, #1) by Diana Wynne Jones. Image on cover shows a castle that has somehow sprouted large wooden legs and is walking in a meadow.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Howl’s Moving Castle (Howl’s Moving Castle, #1) by Diana Wynne Jones

 

This book has been on my TBR list for ages, so all I can go by is the oddly ambulatory castle on the cover that utterly fascinates me.

 

Book cover for A Dirty Job (Grim Reaper, #1) by Christopher Moore. Image on cover shows someone in a grey tunic pushing a baby skeleton in a hot pink carriage. The baby is carrying a scythe and is maybe the grim reaper as a child?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A Dirty Job (Grim Reaper, #1) by Christopher Moore

 

While I haven’t read this one and it is not currently on my TBR list, it has such an eye-catching cover. I’d never think to draw a baby grim reaper (if that is, indeed who he or she is).

 

Book cover for Little Bee by Chris Cleave. Image on cover shows the silhouette of a young black woman’s head. Her hair has been braided in dozens of little braids and she’s looking up expectedly at something beyond the viewer’s gaze.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Little Bee by Chris Cleave

There is subtle foreshadowing on this cover that I found delightful after finishing the last chapter and realizing what hints were shared immediately. (It was an excellent read, too!) If only I could go into more detail without spoiling things. Just know that everything in this image matters.

 

Book cover for Madeleine Is Sleeping by Sarah Shun-lien Bynum. Image on cover shows two young Victorian girls playing dress up. The one on the right is a preteen and is wearing a long white dress and a paper crown. The one on the left looks like she’s about six, is dressed as a knight, and is sitting on one end of a wooden seesaw. There is a leopard pelt - whether real or fake I cannot tell - lying on the floor between them.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Madeleine Is Sleeping by Sarah Shun-lien Bynum

 

Here’s another book I haven’t read that has such an intriguing cover. I’m guessing these girls were playing dress up, but why is a cured leopard pelt part of their games?

 

Book cover for The Deep by Rivers Solomon. Image on cover shows a black mermaid with dreadlocks who is swimming in the ocean next to a whale.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Deep by Rivers Solomon

Once again, this cover has excellent clues about the storyline embedded in it. I appreciated the fact that it lets the reader know immediately that this is about mermaids without giving away the many important differences between Yetu and, say, Ariel from The Little Mermaid. The mythology of and backstory in this tale are of utmost importance, but one also doesn’t want new fans to know too far ahead of time exactly what to expect for spoiler reasons. Hollywood, please hurry up and turn this into a film. The source material has so many little moments in it that would look amazing on the big screen.

 

10 Comments

Filed under Blog Hops

Top Ten Tuesday: LGBTQ Summer Fiction


Hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl

Drawing of a heart that has ridges and swirls in it like a fingerprint.The heart has all of the colours of the Pride flag in it with red at the bottom and then going counter-clockwise for the rest of the of the shades. Happy Pride Month to everyone who is celebrating it! Here are ten LGBTQ+ books with summer settings or themes that I am curious to check out once the humidity and heat rises and it’s too hot to spend much time outdoors.

We’ll see how many of them I get around to.

If you’ve read any of them, I’d love to hear your thoughts on their characters and plots!

1. Hot Dog Girl by Jennifer Dugan

2. The Summer of Jordi Perez by Amy Spalding

3. Kings of B’more by R. Eric Thomas

4. Donut Summer by Anita Kelly

5. The Dead of Summer by Ryan La Sala

6. The Last True Poets of the Sea by Julia Drake

7. Going Bicoastal by Dahlia Adler

8. This Pact Is Not Ours by Zachary Sergi

9. If We Were a Movie by Zakiya N. Jamal

10. Get Real, Chloe Torres by Crystal Maldonado

Do you also tend to save up books to read for when the weather becomes less pleasant for outdoor adventures?

52 Comments

Filed under Blog Hops

A Review of More Money Than Brains

Book cover for More Money than Brains
by Rudolph Kohn. Image on cover shows a lifelike drawing of the inside of a spaceship. Thick undles of wires have been tied together against the wall next to some large metal pipes. At first I thought they were some sort of bug-like alien crawling the wall because of how many wires were sticking out of the bundle in various directions. 

This is an unsettling image that makes me wonder if the electrician knew what he or she was doing as it doesn’t appear to be all that neatly arranged. 

Title: More Money Than Brains

Author: Rudolph Kohn

Publisher: Self-Published

Publication Date: August 11, 2024

Genres: Science Fiction

Length: 13 pages

Source: I received a free copy from the author.

Rating: 5 Stars

Blurb:

Aric and the Misevelin Salvage crew find themselves in a dangerous situation when they try to rescue a captain with way too much money and not enough brains or common sense. The ship’s abysmal condition is almost entirely due to the captain’s neglect, and his bad habits get everyone into a much more dangerous situation!

A short, free introduction to the Derelict Project universe, a far-future hard science fiction setting that focuses on derelict ships and the people who find and investigate them. “More Money than Brains” is a humorous short story that provides a taste of one of the Derelict Project’s main groups of characters: Aric Misevelin, Verene “Bill” Resteford, and Lewes Otracht.

Content Warning:

Review:

Nothing can be neglected forever.

There’s nothing like walking into a disaster at work that could have been easily prevented if small issues had been taken note of and looked after immediately. No matter what type of job you may have, the frustration of people who must deal with the repercussions of others who refused to pay attention to detail and keep up with basic maintenance and cleanliness is universal. I nodded along as this crew realized the long lists of problems they needed to solve to prevent this ship from destroying itself and tried to prioritize the most urgent needs first while continuing to find even more issues along the way. It made me wish I had their specialized knowledge and could help them get things sorted out faster!

This was a fast-paced, plot-centred work that didn’t require much introspection from the characters in order to get its point across. Still, I did enjoy the little moments that showed how Aric, Bill, and Lewes reacted to the nonsense they were dealing with. The combination of their obvious breadth of knowledge on the topic of ship repair and their humorous responses to everything going to hell in a hand basket was delightful and rang true to the repair people in my own life who have had similar reactions to things they wish had been done properly and maintained steadfastly the first time around.

I also loved the ending of this piece which brought the hard science fiction elements of the storyline even further into the spotlight and made me wonder what might happen next. This is something other readers should discover in detail for themselves, but I liked the way it explored both the technical nature of the work as well as all-too human responses to machines as well as other humans that don’t always do what the experts wish they’d do. Bravo for a job well done, Mr. Kohn!

This is a standalone tale from a series.

More Money Than Brains was perfect.

Leave a Comment

Filed under Science Fiction and Fantasy

Wednesday Weekly Blogging Challenge: Books That Need a Sequel

Hosted by Long and Short Reviews.

Click here to read everyone else’s replies to this week’s question and to read everyone else’s replies to this week’s question and here to see the full list of topics for the year.

A large question mark scribbled in blue ink. I wasn’t able to come up with many answers for this week’s prompt because just about all of the books I wished had sequels were eventually given them regardless of what I thought of how those series turned out.  I’ve been very lucky in that regard.

Let’s see which books I still wish could have sequels. Beware of spoilers for older titles in this post!

Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury

Why: The bleak and underwhelming ending. While I still enjoyed the plot, I was expecting the protagonist to accomplish so much more than he actually did.

 

Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro

Why: Once again, the ending was dark and a let down from what I assumed was going to happen. I also thought that the way it was wrapped up conflicted with the themes in earlier chapters about what it means to be human and whether clones should be given the same human rights as someone who was conceived in a more traditional manner.

 

Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel

Why: I’d love to see how the world continued to be rebuilt after the events of this book. It ended on such a hopeful note.

14 Comments

Filed under Blog Hops

Top Ten Tuesday: Animal Companions


Hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl

A green frog sitting peacefully in the water of a pond. The water includes algae and a few small green leaves that have fallen from nearby plants. Thank you to P.S. I Love Books for submitting this theme.

Here are ten books about animal companions that are based on true stories. They make me wish I could have a pet!

1. Marley and Me: Life and Love With the World’s Worst Dog by John Grogan

2. Dewey: The Small-Town Library Cat Who Touched the World by Vicki Myron

3. Wesley the Owl: The Remarkable Love Story of an Owl and His Girl by Stacey O’Brien

4. A Lion Called Christian: The True Story of the Remarkable Bond Between Two Friends and a Lion
by Anthony Bourke

5. Modoc: The True Story of the Greatest Elephant That Ever Lived by Ralph Helfer

6. Justin Morgan Had a Horse by Marguerite Henry

7. A Seal Called Andre by Harry Goodridge

8. In Search of Lost Frogs: The Quest to Find the World’s Rarest Amphibians by Robin Moore

9. Mexican Mutts Tequila Pups & Chili Dogs: True Stories of the Dogs of Mexico by David Gordon Burke

10. The Big Squeal: A True Story About a Homeless Pig’s Search for Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness by Carol Alexander

Do you all have pets? What types of pets do you wish you could have?

 

42 Comments

Filed under Blog Hops

A Review of Desert Soul

Book cover for Desert Soul by Alejandra Cue. Image on cover is a photograph of a desert filled with red sant. There are no signs of life anywhere, but there are a few small mountains on the horizon. Title: Desert Soul – Old Tales of the Traveler 

Author: Alejandra Cue

Publisher: Self-Published

Publication Date: February 3, 2019

Genres: Fantasy, Paranormal

Length: 20 pages

Source: I received a free copy from the author.

Rating: 5 Stars

Blurb:

When the desert of ashes decides your fate, there’s no escaping it. When death crawls in the blackness, struggling is pointless.

Or is it?

This is the story of a boy with one such fate, a boy who lost and found hope in the desolate land, hope that came in the form of a mysterious traveler. But does this newcomer have the power to invalidate the desert’s will, or will they struggle in vain? And even if they succeed, so what? How will they escape the nothingness of ash and sand and death?

Prepare for the tale of a boy and a traveler, who at the time no one knew would become the Traveler.

Content Warning: Death.

Review:

Let the punishment fit the crime.

I was impressed with how Ms. Cue balanced the plot and character development of this short story with her world building for this series as a whole. As someone who has never read anything set in this universe before, I immediately felt at home in it. Yes, there were questions I had about how everything worked that were left for later development, but those mysteries in no way impeded me from enjoying the conflicts here as the traveller tried to save the life of a child whose life was endangered by the heat and intense thirst he felt in the desert. Kudos to the author for pulling this off as it was such an intriguing introduction to her work. 

The conflicts kept me heavily invested in this tale. Not only was the child in dire need of water and medical treatment from the time he’d spent alone in the desert, the traveller who assisted him faced multiple obstacles in his attempts to help the boy. Along with figuring out how the kid had ended up in this predicament, I wanted to know if he was going to be okay and if anyone could help them. This is an excellent example of how a short story can provide all of the necessary details to pull a reader into their world and make us care about the people we find there. Not everything needs hundreds of pages to be effective. Sometimes brevity is the best option!

As excited as I already was by this story, the twist at the end only amped up my interest. Obviously, I can’t share spoilers there other than to say that it made me look at certain characters in a new light and wonder what other secrets they might be hiding up their sleeves. There is definitely something to be said for revealing information only as it’s needed and trusting the audience to figure out the rest with the sufficient number of clues we are provided.

This is part of a series, but it works perfectly nicely as a standalone tale.

Desert Soul has piqued my interest and made me want to learn more about this world.

2 Comments

Filed under Science Fiction and Fantasy

Wednesday Weekly Blogging Challenge: Lessons I Learned From a Book Character

Hosted by Long and Short Reviews.

Click here to read everyone else’s replies to this week’s question and to read everyone else’s replies to this week’s question and here to see the full list of topics for the year.

Lessons learned from Isaac, the protagonist of Isaac’s Song by Daniel Black. I highly recommend reading Don’t Cry for Me, the first book in this series about a family struggling to heal from generational abuse and dysfunction, before tackling the sequel because of how many references and retellings there are of previous events.

So, what did I learn from Isaac:

The worry sorry is written on a white card. The card is being propped up by two sprigs of dried flowers and leaves against a white background. 1) Forgiveness is different for everyone and does not automatically include reconciliation which is not something I was necessarily taught in church growing up. Too often, they’d expect people to forget what happened and welcome the person that hurt them back into their lives without any evidence that the person who harmed them had actually changed.  You can forgive and invite someone back into your life perhaps with very strong boundaries and only after genuine, longterm evidence of change on the transgressor’s part this time. You can also forgive but never interact with that person again. There are many different options.

2) The future is an open book. You could be surprised by a bend in the road five minutes or five weeks or five months from now, so never assume your current circumstances are going to last forever.

3) It takes immense emotional strength to end harmful relationship patterns and cycles which is something outsiders may often overlook or downplay when they’re taking note of what you’ve accomplished in your life. Isaac was far from perfect, but I loved seeing his personal growth as he recovered from the negative aspects of his childhood and built a good life for himself as an adult.

Did I know some of this already? Yes, of course, but some lessons need to be repeated over and over again in many different ways in order to sink in.

8 Comments

Filed under Blog Hops