Two Summer Reading Recommendations

Full disclosure: I’m a little biased, as I copy edited them. However, I’ve been paid in full for that work and will not benefit financially from sales of the books.

I’m posting about them because for both books, I was so interested in the story that I wanted to actually read it for pleasure once I was finished with my work. That’s a first—and a second.

Articles and videos about how “people don’t read anymore” seem to be everywhere. Being a voracious reader practically from the day I learned how, I don’t understand that emotionally. When I put on my psychologist hat and look at the changes just in education and technology over my life, I do understand it intellectually. It didn’t have to be this way; and I’d like to help others who want to shift this trend.

For those who would like to return to reading, especially good fiction, these two novellas should work quite nicely. K. David Ladage is a writer I met via a mutual writer acquaintance on Substack, Alma Drake (whose music is well worth exploring). He’s a masterful storyteller.

Dreamscapes: The Trials and Tribulations of Rudy Zimmerman is fiction with a soupçon of science fiction and fantasy. As the main characters are teenagers, one might be inclined to affix a “young adult” label on it as well, but that would be a disservice. Ladage takes the idea of blurring the line between dreams and reality in an unexpected direction, and leaves the reader with plenty to think about should one choose. I can see Dreamscapes entering my rotation of books to be reread and pondered with pleasure.

Shattered Swords leans more to science fiction, being set in a galaxy populated by several space-traveling, somewhat humanoid beings. As much of a thriller as that description suggests, it’s also quite the psychological novella. Several passages were evocative of Ursula K. Le Guin. It was much harder for me to retain details of the story, as its setting and scope is much broader than that of Dreamscapes, so I’m even more eager to return to it and savor the reading.

I didn’t know anything about Lulu prior to working with David, so I don’t know what choices an author has for printing one’s work. As with the novellas themselves, I don’t want to give away too much here—I’ll just say that the books are well bound and have details that enhance my enjoyment of both object and story.

For younger readers and for those looking to sharpen rusty reading skills, the novella is an ideal form. It’s meaty enough to become engrossed in without becoming ponderous. And a skilled writer can hit the sweet spot of providing enough closure without verging into tidying up every last detail. Ladage accomplishes all this and also writes better endings than Neal Stephenson. Both Dreamscapes and Shattered Swords offer a welcome reprieve from the world’s woes and ideas worth thinking about.