#61 Hard Magic by Larry Correia

I'm reading this as part of my reading for the Hugo ballot. I've read a few books in his other series and enjoyed them but I don't grab them off the shelf as soon as they arrive.

This book is set in a world that people with magical abilities start appearing around 1850 or so.  The current setting is the 1930's and those that can perform magic are referred to as Actives. Jake Sullivan is someone who can manipulate gravity and is working for the FBI on occasion capturing other Actives as part of his parole.  When he has to go after his former girlfriend, he is quickly exposed to a secret group of Actives trying to stop the Chairman from taking over the world. It is a classic battle of good vs evil and people do die which makes this realistic.

A fun read that pays attention to the time it is set in. There is obvious racism and sexism and it is authentic to the time frame and even so someone will comment even if to themselves that it doesn't seem fair.

#62 We Are All Completely Fine by Daryl Gregory

This is a novella about survivors of horrific attacks getting together for group therapy.  Each one of them have survived terrible acts and they are part of a group therapy set up just for them that the therapist has worked a long time to set up. As the story unfolds you find out about each attack and how they survived. Everyone in the group was rescued by other people except one rescued himself and became a folk hero of sorts. This comes out in the sessions and it does color how the rest of the group responds to him.  For me this was a hard read because I am not a horror fan at any stretch of the definition and reading about what they survived was almost too gruesome for me. I did finish the book to see where the story was going and the ending was interesting but I would only recommend it to people that are fine reading about the vicious things they each survived.


Digital review copy provided by the publisher through NetGalley