Audely Bensen Writes

I stumbled upon The Factory Witches of Lowell by C.S. Malerich (2020) in the library stacks. I took it home because it's historical fiction set during the time that I'm basing my next revision of The Seaming in, and I was curious to see what the world-building looked like in another U.S.-based fantasy.  It was fascinating to see so much of the research I'm doing reflected back on the pages! Little easter-eggs, just for me. As fun as that was, it's very different from the type of world-building that I'm trying to do. This is more alt-history, where I'm trying to use this period to build a secondary world.  And so, the hunt for more books continues! Since the plague began, I've had a very hard time reading fantasy and sci-fi, which is strange, because I love it! According to my reading tracker, I've been reading 4 romance books to every 1 SFF book. The predictableness of romance is soothing, and I don't have to think so hard as I do to follow more com...

Last weekend we traveled to Connecticut for a wedding. With friends and their two-year old daughter we rented a house along the Niantic Bay, and spent the weekend lounging near the water. While we relaxed I read Jessamine Chan's The School for Good Mothers  (2022). I picked this book up from the library because it seemed like a good potential comp for Dandelions, my current wip.  Since The School for Good Mothers seems to me to be both literary/book club fiction and grounded sci-fi, I wanted to read it to see how and when Chan introduces the sci-fi-eque parts of the book. The first few chapters seemed fairly straight-contemporary, and the first place that we begin to see difference between our world and the book's world is in the quick-reach of government and the impact of big-tech. These aspects of world building are not directly tied to the plot, but they do help to ground the differences. Then when the larger sci-fi elements emerge closer to the end of the first third, they...

I swore I would only check 3 books out of the library, so of course I came out with 6. A few of them were short, you see, so they didn't really count against the self-imposed title limit. One of those was Seanan McGuire's Every Heart a Doorway  (2016). I've heard Seanan be interviewed on various writing podcasts but had never read any of her work, and did not realize quite how prolific she is.  I. Loved. This. Book. I can't wait to go back to the library and see how much more of her work I can devour. Every Heart a Doorway was a little bit gruesome, a little bit tender, with a whole world I am begging to get lost in. As a constant for me lately, I struggled a little with the cast of characters and remember who was who, but I'm starting to think that's just my new normal now.   Anyway. Back to the library I go.