Audely Bensen Writes

I picked up The Night Guest by Hildur Knútsdóttir on Erin and Mo' s recommendation. Mary Robinette translated the book, and I really want to know if there is anything that she can't do. This book was sharp, short, and efficient. I read it in one sitting. The thing I enjoyed most about this story was how the author used the page itself to tell the story. Blank space and page flips helped to build the tension as much as the words themselves did.  One thing to note is that this book has a large trigger warning for animal harm, as well as body horror. It's been a long time since I've seen such gruesome animal harm on-page, and it was shocking only because it seems that's become more of a taboo over the last decade (based on what I've been reading, anyway).  Overall, this was a punchy, voicey horror and I would likely read more by this author.

It's nearly the end of March, which means that it's just about time to check in on how I'm doing on my annual writing goals.  👍 Finish and query Predacide . In progress! I finished Predacide and have sent over 70 queries out. There's a few more people that I'd like to submit to when they open, but overall this process is going fairly quickly.  👍  Draft Beekeeper.  I have a draft of Beekeeper! It's 57,349 words and I've been working on it for 79 days. I already have a half-dozen ideas of plot holes I want to fix, and themes I want to push deeper. I'm pushing myself to wait at least a week before I immediately begin outlining the next draft.  👎 Beta read 4 books . Bad news. I've read about 7,000 words in short stories for friends, but have not read anything substantive yet. On the other hand, I have an opportunity to fix this, with 2 partials and 1 full manuscript all in my inbox waiting for me to get my act together and read already.  💬 Generate 2...

I saw Blob (A Love Story) by Maggie Su on a list of new releases, and then the next day lucked across it on the library's shelves. This was a very fun book that crossed the lines of literary and science fiction.  On more than one occasion I've tried to read this type of literary book: a twenty-something from a family that prioritizes academic success drops out of college and becomes depressed, or drops out of college because they are depressed, and then some relationship happens that doesn't fix them because (surprise) relationships can't fix depression or your own relationship with family pressures. Usually, by halfway through this type of book the main character's moroseness has sponged over to me and I feel too depressed to bother finishing the book.  That's not what happened with Blob. Although all the familiar lit-fic tropes were there, Blob had me laughing out loud and never dragged me down with the main character, maybe because Vi worked so hard to work ...

About a year and a half ago I went to to World Fantasy Con with a friend, and had the opportunity to meet Andrea Stewart. I left the con with a signed copy of her second book (along with a huge pile of other books). Then, my local library didn't have the first book on their shelves.  After we moved, Bone Shard Daughter was the first book that I checked out of the new library. This was a fast-moving book with a large cast of characters. It took me a bit of time to wrap my head around each of the new perspectives as I moved through the opening, but once I pieced together who was who, I really enjoyed this book. It seemed like the type of book that I would have loved in college, back when I read mostly fantasy books.  One aspect of fantasy that's been challenging to me over the last couple years is that often I can't handle the amount of tension conveyed by the plot. That didn't happen with this book. I read at a normal pace, wanting to know what would happen, but withou...

Erica Swyler is one of my auto-read authors. I inhaled The Book of Speculation when that came out. When I spotted her new book, We Lived on the Horizon, on the library shelves I knew I had to read it.  It took me nearly a whole week to finish this book. I would read a bit, and then get stuck in my head, thinking about the fascinating ethical quandary the characters had stumbled into. Then I'd read a bit more, and in two hours would find I'd read only a chapter or two. And this book's chapters on the whole are pretty short!  I didn't dislike the book, but the pacing is slow. There's so much to think about, and so many messages to take away. I found at times I had a hard time focusing on the plot over the Ideas. I'm really curious if that's what the author intended. As I'm drafting my own book, I'm keeping in mind the need to take care with slow scenes, with poignant sentences. All of writing is intentional; and this book made me question what kind of...