City of Stairs is the only Robert Jackson Bennett I’ve read, and it put me off reading more of him. (I had kind of the same experience as you’re having. Like, it was fine, but not for me.) If his other stuff is better, I’ll have to give him another shot.

Glad you’re liking Slow Horses!

Open to recommendations for all 3, but especially saddle up!

Two short things I read and liked, that’d work for Saddle Up: Kiki’s Delivery Service by Eiko Kadono (also works for cozy), and River of Teeth by Sarah Gailey (hard mode!). If neither of those sound interesting, maybe look at The Country Under Heaven by Frederic S. Durbin; it’s still on my TBR, so I can’t recommend it, but it looks like it might be fun? Beyond that, I’d argue that driving/piloting counts for Saddle Up, so anything featuring aviators, professional drivers, or mech pilots should also work.

I haven’t been reading much, so I’m only about halfway through 1984. I really like all the world building, but the actual plot kinda drags so far. Maybe that’s about to change?

I also barely started Threads of Malice by Tamara Siler Jones, which I can already tell will be engrossing. Holding off on reading more of it til I finish 1984.

Sometimes I see something in the weekly reading posts here that seems fun. I also try the StoryGraph recommender occasionally, but it often gives me a very narrow set of recs that I’ve seen 10 times already. (You can tell it not to recommend specific books or authors anymore, but I consider that a last resort.) Mainly, I look at a lot of lists (new releases, curated/themed, “similar”/“readers also enjoyed”, etc).

Once I find something that looks interesting, I read a bunch of 3-star reviews on Goodreads or StoryGraph, to weed out stuff I’d be likely to drop. Whatever passes that test goes on my TBR.

I’m not suuuuper familiar with owlbears, so I’m going solely by composition. Since the scroll is very orderly (centered, not tilted or anything), have you considered arranging the weapons more geometrically, too? Personally, I’m thinking rays, where the heads are symmetrically spaced to imply an oval, and the handles all angle from the same point (warning: this will draw the eye there). Making any kind of decorative pattern with them might work, though!

I’m slowly but surely making my way through 1984. I think I’m not in the right mood for it to grab me better, but it’s interesting so far.

__

Finished (since last thread):

Days by Moonlight by André Alexis (magically realistic literary fiction) | bingo: minority author, award

A grieving scientist agrees to join his parents’ friend on a trip to research a missing poet.

I liked this a lot in the beginning, and found the writing style engaging. However, I could tell a lot of the Canadian references were going over my head, and the last third went off in a direction that killed a lot of my enthusiasm. It’s not a bad book, and I might try something else by the author eventually, but I think someone who reads a lot of lit fic would appreciate it more.

Devil in a Blue Dress by Walter Mosley (historical detective noir) | bingo: minority author HM, motion picture, award HM

A recently unemployed WWII vet takes on a shady request to find a missing girl.

It was cool to see noir from a Black perspective, but I didn’t like it enough to want to read more of the series. Maybe I don’t have the patience for noir tropes I thought I did.

What Moves the Dead by T. Kingfisher (historical gothic fantasy horror) | bingo: creature, short, lgbtqia+ (maybe), award, late to the party

A The Fall of the House of Usher retelling. An ex-soldier visits a friend, whose sister is gravely ill. On arrival, it quickly becomes clear that something is very wrong with, well, everything.

I was wary of trying another horror from T. Kingfisher after disliking The Hollow Places, but I really liked the cover, and it was short, so I gave it a shot. Turns out, this was great! Pleasantly disturbing and didn’t overstay its welcome.

I also didn’t care for The Hollow Places, and have avoided her horror novels ever since. I did pick up What Moves the Dead recently, though, and found it enjoyable. Maybe it’s just that one book? Maybe she’s better at gothic than straight horror? I don’t know.

I do generally like T. Kingfisher’s fairy tale-inspired titles, as well; the ones I’ve read do tend to have the same kind of spunky protagonist as The Hollow Places, but that kind of MC doesn’t bother me in a fantasy setting. YMMV, ofc.

3 hours? That’s one tough chicken.

I’m reading Days by Moonlight by André Alexis. Literary fiction isn’t normally my jam, but this is very chill so far.

I’m still settling on a new book rn, but I went on kind of a reading binge last week.

Finished:

A Case of Life and Limb by Sally Smith (mostly cozy historical mystery with legal elements) | bingo: different continent, x of y HM, new, alliterative, cozy

The reclusive barrister from the first book is drawn into another mystery while preparing for a court case rife with scandal.

This was a little less cozy than the first book, but I liked it just as much. I do hope the next one will break the pattern of ‘seemingly separate court case turns out to be related to the mystery’, though.

Obscura by Joe Hart (scifi thriller with mystery and horror elements) | bingo: none!

A scientist working on a cure for an Alzheimer’s-like disease is convinced to travel to space to diagnose a team of astronauts with similar symptoms.

For as many issues as I had with this, it was still enjoyable. The horror/thriller/mystery parts were fun, but the physics were applied spottily, and I did a lot of eye rolling at the repeated railroading of the MC by others to avoid explaining the situation, only for them to later explain the situation.

Teacup Magic: The First Collection by Tansy Rayner Roberts (cozy fantasy of manners with romance and mystery elements) | bingo: different continent, indie, short HM, steppin’ up HM, cozy

A trio of novellas about an upper-class young woman falling into magical mysteries and adventures with her friends and love interest.

These were charming, fluffy fun that I will happily read more of. Skip if you prefer detailed world building, or acknowledgement of privilege.

I haven’t read Mieville yet, but while I was reading The Works of Vermin, I did wonder if there were similarities. Good to know!

Agreed, that prologue is fantastic. I wish the rest of the book matched that tone and intensity better, but I still enjoyed it.

Yeah, it’s just a fancy ampersand. The wiki article has examples of similar-looking ones, if OP wants to confirm.

I couldn’t help it, I picked up A Case of Life and Limb by Sally Smith, the sequel to the book I finished last week. Just as comfy as the first book so far.

__

Finished Orange World and Other Stories by Karen Russell (fantasy/supernatural short stories) | bingo: short HM, orange HM

Semi-lighthearted collection of stories, each with a supernatural element, like ghosts, demons, or the undead.

Finally sat down and finished this one, which I started some months back. I have sort of a resounding ‘meh’ opinion of this collection, even though it was well-written and pleasantly surprised me in places. There’s really nothing I can point out specifically that I didn’t like, it just didn’t click with me somehow.

Trying to finish up Orange World and Other Stories by Karen Russell, which I started a few months ago and put down partway through. Obscura by Joe Hart is kind of on pause atm, haven’t really felt like getting back into it.

__

Finished A Case of Mice and Murder by Sally Smith (Edwardian-era historical cozy mystery) | bingo squares: different continent, alliterative, x of y HM, steppin’ up HM, cozy

A reclusive (neurodiverse?) barrister is strongarmed into investigating the murder of the chief justice, amidst preparing for a challenging court case.

This was delightful, felt just about the right length, and was well paced. I’ve already added the next book to my TBR pile.

Welcome! Impressive progress, especially for filling it in retroactively. Do you think you’ll try to do more, or call it good?

I’ll have a look at Health for All, thanks for the rec.

Other than reading for the community book bingo, my only goals are to read more authors of color (doable) and to cross off more titles from my TBR pile than I add (really unlikely).

I’m about halfway through Obscura by Joe Hart, the only book on my hundreds-of-books-long TBR list that seems to qualify for the regular mode center square for bingo. It’s a fast read, as one would hope for a scifi thriller, but the badly done science keeps making me grumble and put it down.

I also started A Case of Mice and Murder by Sally Smith, which is fun so far.

__

Finished Call for the Dead by John le Carré (Cold War spy murder mystery) | bingo: different continent, war, motion picture, short, political

When a routine security interview results in suicide, a secret service agent investigates the death with the help of a retired inspector.

Le Carré’s debut novel. I found it a little clunky and poorly aged in a couple of places, but thoroughly enjoyable overall. Smiley’s just fun to read, I think.

Nice!

I always have trouble picking favorites, so here are the three I most enjoyed:

• The Crows by C.M. Rosens - 90s chick lit crossed with eldritch horror: a young woman buys a house in a seaside town, unaware that some of the townsfolk are secretly eldritch monstrosities, or that the house is more than it seems. Suffers a little bit from self-published editing in places, but the awfulness + fluff combo works surprisingly well; I devoured this.
• Vita Nostra by Marina and Sergey Dyachenko - dark academia fantasy with cosmic horror elements: a teenager is coerced into attending a mysterious institute, where the main coursework is incomprehensible, and nobody will explain what the students are learning. Despite this being much too slowly paced for me and not my typical subgenre, the magic system was fascinating.
• Valuable Humans in Transit and Other Stories by qntm - short story collection focusing on scifi technology. I’m not a huge short story fan, but I read a few collections for bingo, and this is the only one I liked as a whole.