Gord Sellar Profile picture
I'm a teacher, SF writer, homebrewer, and musician living in South Korea.

Jan 27, 2021, 12 tweets

Okay, some friends are tweeting what they read this year. Sounds fun. Maybe I'll read more, too? (This year was... slow.) #2021books

Book 1: The Fisherman, by John Langan. Loved the bizarre dark fantasy novella in the middle of this book—the historical narrative is pure gaaah.

Book 2: Mouse Guard 3: The Black Axe. Yes, I'm counting graphic novels, and this was a fun one, sort of a gritty flashback prologue telling the backstory of a mysterious character from earlier in the series. Can't wait till my son digs into these in a few years... #2021books

Book 3: Art and Fear by David Bayles and Ted Orland: A purgative for the ridiculously high expectations creators use to cripple themselves. Worth it if 2020 put your creative energies through the wringer. #2021books

(@NMamatas recommended it someplace or other: thanks Nick!)

Book 4: Twentieth-Century Harmony by Vincent Persichetti: extremely lucid, if slightly dry, treatment of modern ("conservatory") musical theory. This is one to read a bit at a time, bit of a firehose all at once. The exercises look fun and also *very* challenging. #2021books

Book 5: Kuunmong: The Cloud Dream of the Nine by Kim Manjung, trans. James S. Gale (1922). (@kurodahan's reprint)
Buddhist dream-fable about being careful what you yearn for, because samsara means even getting it all leads to suffering and back to spiritual yearnings. #2021books

Book 6: Thoreau's Microscope by Michael Blumlein is mindbendingly wonderful and strange—everything I wished for after rereading The Brains of Rats years ago.

And there's more since—All I Ever Dreamed (2018)! (Sadly we lost him in 2019.)

#2021books

Book 7: The Fall of Delta Green by Kenneth Hite. A big fat RPG book full of cool horrible stuff.

I dug it and look forward to running it, even if bits were a little overwhelming!

#2021books

Book 8: an ARC of I’m Waiting For You by our friend Kim Bo-Young, (translation: Sophie Bowman and Sung Ryu).

Cool collection of paired stories with lovely extras. Lovers separated by time dilation, Bangsian afterlife fantasy with a SFnal twist…

Out in April! #2021books

Book 9: "On a Bank by Moonlight" by Gareth Ryder Hanrahan is 1. Half of a Free RPG Day book and 2. a solid Fall of Delta Green scenario I’ll be stealing pieces from for something of my own in an upcoming game. (Bit of a cheat, but a crucially helpful read for me.)

#2021books

Huh, the book thread chain somehow got split. Here's the link to where it picked up.

Hm, this thread continues here.

Share this Scrolly Tale with your friends.

A Scrolly Tale is a new way to read Twitter threads with a more visually immersive experience.
Discover more beautiful Scrolly Tales like this.

Keep scrolling