Offbeat Offline: November 2024

Welcome to Offbeat Offline, where I bring you up-to-date with what went on in my life during the month just gone, give you a sneak peek of my next shenanigans, and share my favourite posts of late!

What happened last month to yours truly? A colonoscopy, hair drama and reviewer's block. I was too tired and angry to sit and produce words...or pursue my housekeeping plans. It was the weirdest, most misspent month. I accomplished nothing and I'm not even rested because of it...

📚 SPECTACULAR FAILURE. I barely read and had a hard time reviewing this month...maybe to make up for my super-productive October LOL. I finished a very good book and proceeded to procrastinate its review until I gave myself reviewer's block, which resulted in my not starting a new book after that one because I wanted to review it first (I hate to muddle the waters)...Also, I was in a foul mood (see "Living & Screaming" below), which affected my will to review...I started to spend more time on BlueSky instead (in the wake of the recent - and ongoing - Twitter exodus), where, after I liked a couple of his posts, author Ryan La Sala (whom I had been following for a while on there) ended up following me back (!!! I think he remembers me from when I reviewed his first book, because he has tons of fans, and it's not like he follows back everyone). I thanked him and he immediately replied with hearts and kissing faces LOL. That was nice. Anyhow, back to my report - here's my monthly bookish recap...

Approvals (1+1...that is, 1 real approval and 1 ARC from the author):

• Bad Creek by Peyton June (YA, afterlife/thriller/???)

Iris, Gum, and Aidan are vacationing in Bad Creek, just like every summer. Except Iris’s older sister, Glory, drowned in the lake last year, and Iris can’t seem to move on; Gum is hiding his sexuality from his family while being viciously haunted by Glory’s rotting ghost; and Aidan is distraught over a drunken argument with Glory that he fears may have led to her death. When Iris sleepwalks to the dilapidated house that Glory obsessively sketched in her final days, she and the boys begin to uncover a sinister history in the very bones of the town. The trio must reckon with the events of last summer and uncover what lurks within Bad Creek before it takes Iris’s life next.

Gripping and vengeful, Bad Creek confronts the intersection of religion, sexuality, and feminism, and forces readers to reckon with monsters in all their forms—human included.

• The Accidental Time Travelers Collective Volume 3 by Joshua David Bellin et al. (Adult, sci-fi - I got this one from Bellin, an author I met last year over his awesome time-travel novel Myriad)

Mysterious timepieces and yet-to-be-written masterpieces. Second chances and experiments with the fabric of time. Fortune-tellers and temporal tour companies whose services might not be all they are advertised to be. Travelers with the power to save the future, if they can avoid the mistakes of the past.

These and other adventures await in The Accidental Time Travelers Collective, volume 3. As with the first two volumes in the series, this anthology features twelve works by an international group of speculative fiction authors who share a love of time travel. Stories include new tales by old favorites, as well as debut voices. We pride ourselves on showcasing established authors, some of whose novels’ universes are expanded through these short stories, as well as discovering new talent for whom this is their first published story ever.

Open the pages of The Accidental Time Travelers Collective, volume 3. Lose yourself in alternate worlds, lives long past, and future possibilities. Explore tales that run the gamut from humorous to harrowing. We promise it’ll be time well spent!

Reads (1):

• The Way Up Is Death by Dan Hanks (Adult, supernatural/multiverse)

I enjoyed Hanks' Swashbucklers in 2021, but this one is next level (see what I did here? 😉). A wild, brutal yet poetical adventure/mystery that doubles as a reflection on humanity, life and the future.

Reviews (1):

• The Way Up Is Death by Dan Hanks (see above)

Scheduled for January 14th.

Here are my scheduled reviews for this month:

• Beholder by Ryan La Sala (on Fri. 6th);
• The Losting Fountain by Lora Senf (on Wed. 11th);
• The Accidental Time Travelers Collective Vol.3 by Joshua David Bellin et al., Here Lies a Vengeful Bitch by Codie Crowley and Naida by Dawn Kurtagich (in a mini-review round on Mon. 16th).

Reviews aside, brace yourself for my 2024 wrap-up on Sun. 22nd. I'm going to skip the Tell Me Something Tuesday meme this month (what's new?), for the usual reasons...but I'll read your answers and comment on them! In the meantime, here's the TMST prompt list for the months of December and January, in case you want to join in:

• December 3th: What is your favorite breakfast food?
• December 10th: What are your favorite books/audiobooks that you read in 2024?
• December 17th: Do you enjoy reading holiday-themed books at the holidays or year-round?
• December 24th: Taking a break (no question)
• December 31st: How do you celebrate New Year's Eve/the new year?
• January 7th: What are your blogging/reading goals for the new year?
• January 14th: What book have you most recently re-read? Did your opinion of the book change?
• January 21st: Which book/TV/movie character would you like to be friends with?
• January 28th: What is your favorite thing about winter?

💉GOODNIGHT, SWEET DREAMS. I took my second colonoscopy and...I didn't even notice this time. After suffering a lot for the first one (8 years ago), I requested to do it under conscious sedation, but I found out that, regardless, in the meantime CS had become the standard method. So, they drugged me, and...I immediately fell asleep like a rock LOL. I only woke up when they told me it was finished, and if I didn't have pictures of my insides, I might as well not believe they actually did it. They didn't find anything, so I guess my problems are IBS related, only worse than usual...which doesn't surprise me, what with my stress level being off the charts...

🩸 TRUDGING ON. I went to see the hematologist for my usual CLL check-up, and I still don't need therapy, hooray. My latest ultrasound didn't highlight any change (which is good), while the most recent bloodwork showed a leukocytes and lymphocytes increment, but the whole picture doesn't justify immunotherapy at this stage. Not to mention, in the past my leuko and lympho count has been worse than it is at the moment...My next visit is scheduled in six months (with two more bloodworks in the middle).

💇‍♀️ RECIPE FOR DISASTER. Another round of perm woes, yay me. You might remember that the complete perm I got in May was difficult (what's new?) and ultimately below my old standards for a number of reasons (same), but considering that the new chemicals are rubbish, I was reasonably happy with the result...until I went to redo the top and bangs in November, and my hairdresser, in an excess of zeal, repermed a whole lot of strands that were still curly at the ends (and that I hadn't planned for her to touch up, because I knew the risks), in order to make the whole thing look more cohesive...which resulted in my previous, hard-earned curls reverting to semi-straightness, while the top and bangs (almost devoid of perm after six months) came out super-afro (which was what I wanted, except now I had two different hairstyles). I won't lie, I cried like a baby. After a couple of weeks, she repeated the process on the bad strands (for free...her mistake, after all) and now I have decent hair again...though "decent" is nothing like the hair I used to have. Anyhow, I decided that next time, in between two complete perms, I'l redo my bangs and nothing more - a small consolation, but at least it won't cause any collateral damage...

😩 EXISTENTIAL ANGST. Nothing else, which is just as well, because usually with me, if something happens, it's bad news. I was tired, worried, generally angry, specifically cranky for the hair thing, and didn't accomplish anything all month. I hated myself for not being able to break the circle of not reviewing, not housekeeping, not being active, but at the same time, I was too exhausted (and angry - did I mention angry?) to care. Also, my husband still isn't able to take more than a few steps at home, which largely contributes to my despair...

PUBLISHING NEWS/TIPS

• If interested, publicity manager Caroline Lambe will send you a round-up email of Angry Robot 2025 pub list from which you can select ARCs to request (I got it, and it's a very well organised and detailed list!).

THINK-PIECES, DISCUSSIONS, ORIGINAL FICTION

• Lissa shares some thoughts about blogging.
• Sam wants to know if you read non-fiction.
• The Orangutan Librarian explains why she's not a fan of comp titles.
• The Orangutan Librarian (again) highlights the importance and value of reviews. 
• Krysta muses on what makes a good children's book.
• Krysta (again) points out the problems that get in the way of creating a reading culture and offers possible solutions.
• Cee Arr opens up about her struggle with to-do lists.
• Kit recalls a number of scenes in books, movies and shows that disturbed her as a kid.
• Lissa (again) amuses her readers with her quirky story The Honest Obituary Writer.

REVIEWS/RECOMMENDATIONS

This month, I'm linking to B.C. Johnson's Author Chat series, where he interviews a number of fellow indie writers. I suppose these can double as recommendations...

• Meet fantasy author D. Ertug (The Children of Eberen).
• Meet sci-fi author Henry Nielsen (Sunward Sky).
• Meet short-story author, poet and editor Kala Godin (Graveyard Heart).
• Meet superhero author and micro-publisher Ian Thomas Healy (Just Cause).
• Meet fantasy/sci-fi author James D. McEwan (Kalleron).
• Meet sci-fi romance author Claire Barner (Moonrising).

OTHER

• After a long hiatus, Quinley is back with her new embroidery piece.
• Author Casey Lawrence explains how to turn off AI-scraping from your Word documents (yep, yet another built-in opt-in 🤬).

That's it for now. My next post will be up on December 6th, and it will be the review for Beholder I mentioned above.

So, what were your highs/lows in the past month?