Over a decade ago, I fell completely in love with the Liaden Universe. The brainchild of married co-authors Sharon Lee and Steve Miller, this elaborately crafted science fiction series first came to me at the strong recommendation of my friend Kai, who knows whereof he speaks where elaborately crafted science fiction series, and won me over from the very first page.
There are now two dozen Liaden novels, and I am several behind in those series, but more than that, I am all of them behind in the self-published “chapbooks” that began to be produced by the series’ authors in the 90s, when their then-publisher went bankrupt.
Each featuring two (occasionally more) short stories set in the Liaden world, I have been collecting these chapbooks — some of which are now very, very rare — for years, but… well, I haven’t read them. Any of them. WHY? Eh. Who even knows at this point.
But this month, I will read them all! It has been decided! There are twenty-nine of them, and there are thirty days in November, so I am going to be all Liad all the time for the next several weeks. Yay!
This first one gets me off to a most excellent start, as its two tales of Korval are, in fact, two tales of Val Con yos’Phelium, probably my favourite Liaden, one showing him as a youngster learning to be a Scout and first meeting the sentient giant turtle, who would go on to become his best friend, Edger, and the other putting Val Con in a skimmer race with his cousin Shan in defiance of the punctilious Lady Kareen, whom I hate. I loved both of these stories — LOVED THEM — and can’t wait to read more of these snapshot tales from out of the unexplored areas of the Liaden canon.
SCORECARD
TBR DAY 304: Two Tales of Korval (Adventures in the Liaden Universe #1) by Sharon Lee and Steve Miller
GENRE: Science Fiction, Space Opera
PUBLISHED: 1995
TIME ON THE TBR: ~10 years.
PURCHASED FROM: eBay.
KEEP: Of course.
Surreal is the only word that can be applied to this mind-twisty, somewhat headache-inducing novel, which I bought long, long ago upon the recommendation of the Amazon algorithm that has, to date, found me most amenable to most of its suggestions of books I might like.
I love it when genres merge, and here Military Science Fiction meets Mystery as Colonel Carl Butler, no nonsense, competent and honourable (if kind of an alcoholic, in the tradition of many detective types), is sent to investigate the disappearance of a well-connected lieutenant during a battle on a war ravaged occupied planet.
This is so different to 
Christopher G. Nuttall is the real name of Jack Campbell, an author who wrote modern day pulpy space opera series The Lost Fleet, which I loved. Well, I loved the first five books. That series has seen multiple spinoffs and continuations, and I am a long way behind on those, because I kind of lost the thread of what was happening and have never managed to get back on track.
Whole swathes of this book are about illness. Serious illness, like the plague and a vicious influenza, one in the distant past and another in the distant future. 
The first in the newly minted Lady Astronaut series, this multi award-winning novel (it just won the Hugo for Best Novel yesterday) is set in an an alternate America, in which a huge impact event has affected the Earth to such an extent that it is likely to be an extinction event as well. Warning of this is Dr. Elma York, an astrophysicist who is also a math genius and an expert pilot and who must battle against institutionalised sexism — and, on behalf of others, racism, once she realises it’s happening — in order to join the ranks of those astronaut saviours who may well be humanity’s only hop.
For all my love of science fiction, I have never been particularly drawn to cyberpunk as a subgenre. Of course, I have read Neuromancer and Johnny Mnemonic, Snowcrash and Altered Carbon among other such, not to mention a bunch of applicable Philip K. Dick. I’ve seen every iteration of Blade Runner that exists on film (and that is a lot). But I think there is something about its generally bleak vision of the future — that technology and progress will overtake us so implacably that we will be powerless to prevent society’s inevitable descent into cybernetics, dehumanization and, above all, loneliness — that makes me unutterably sad.
My friend Nate has been raving about this series for the past year or so, and since I bought its first book on a whim a while back — look at that hideous cover! Surely the book had to be good, I thought, with a cover so bad; it’s the same principle on which I often choose wine — I finally decided to dive in if for no other reason than to shut him the hell up. 
I have a fondness for old SF paperbacks, and it is very hard for me to pass one by should I see it at a book sale or op shop or similar. This one came in a set of six vintage titles on which I successfully bid at filking convention’s silent auction in Atlanta — “filking” is, essentially, making music about nerd stuff, and I went to a convention of same because I was living in Atlanta at the time and