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QuiteBrief

@quitebrief.bsky.social

300 followers 220 following 2K posts

Apparently I am a used bookstore's worth of reviews and the odd technical comment.
May occasionally behave like a Cookie Monster.
"All solutions are easy when you don't understand the problem."

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QuiteBrief @quitebrief.bsky.social · Jul 31

Book tags 07/31/25. (1/4)
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QuiteBrief

@quitebrief.bsky.social

#bookreview 📚💙 📚🪐
Fan of:
- Virtual Reality TV
- Pop culture references
- Twain's The Innocents Abroad
- Compilers
Try
@darylwriterguy.bsky.social's
When We Were Real
darylgregory.com
A bus tour takes a turn when a fugitive joins a group going to places that break physics as only a video game could

Cover of Daryl Gregory's When We Were Real
A pinkish cartoon landscape of a road receding to a tunnel through hills in the distance that have a sun setting behind them. Smooth puffy clouds fill the sky that has a crescent moon. To the sides of the road, similar clouds with 4 legs dot the landscape, as headless sheep.
Cover text reads
"Our America right now,
Seen with cosmic X-ray vision."
-Kim Stanley Robinson
When
We
Were
Real
A
novel
Award-Winning
Author of
Spoonbenders
Daryl
Gregory

November 8, 2025 at 3:09 PM

Reposted by QuiteBrief

Peter Clines

@peterclines.bsky.social

HEY SAN FRANCISCO FOLKS

One week from tonight I'm going to be casually scribbling in copies of GOD'S JUNK DRAWER at Borderlands. Stop by. Say hello. Get a book scribbled in.

I'll be there from 5:15 on the 13th until there's nothing left to scribble in. Or until they close. Whichever comes first.

November 7, 2025 at 4:26 AM

QuiteBrief

@quitebrief.bsky.social

#bookreview 📚💙 📚⚡️📚🤣
Fan of:
- It's a Mad(x4) World
- Repo Man
- Fight Club
- Social satire
Try
@jasonkpargin.bsky.social's
I'm Starting To Worry About This Black Box of Doom
bookshop.org/p/books/i-m-...
An introvert is convinced to help a woman take a box across the US, but can't know what's in it.

Cover of Jason Pargin's I'm Starting To Worry About This Black Box of Doom.

A woman in high top sneakers, shorts, a red hooded sweatshirt, green sunglasses and a red hat that has 'Welcome to the shitshow' written in gothic font with the o in Shitshow drawn as a radiation symbol sits on a wheeled trunk with a radiation symbol stenciled on the side.
A green drawing of an explosion is behind her on the white cover.
Icons of a 'gray' alien head, knife, rabbit, 7 pointed star and car are across the top while a small green icon of the USA is in the bottom left.
Cover text reads:
I'm Starting To Worry About
This Black Box of
DOOM
A novel
Jason Pargin
Bestselling author of
John Dies At The End

October 22, 2025 at 1:02 AM

QuiteBrief

@quitebrief.bsky.social

#bookreview 📚💙 📚🪐
Fan of:
- Action
- Comedy
- Hard Boiled PIs
- Messing with the wrong people
- Malcolm Reynolds
- Smartasses!
Try
Kathleen McClure's
Soldier of Fortune
bookshop.org/p/books/sold...
A soldier released on parole finds out trouble is ready to pick up right where it left off with him.

October 16, 2025 at 2:29 AM

QuiteBrief

@quitebrief.bsky.social

#bookreview 📚💙 📚🪐
Fan of:
- Space opera!
- Complex world building
- Super high tech
Try
Alastair Reynolds'
Revelation Space
www.alastairreynolds.com/release/reve...
MCs with wildly different goals are all affected by the mystery of a long dead alien civilization (whether they realize it or not).

Cover of Alastair Reynolds' Revelation Space
A view from space of the top half of a planet lit from behind and above, with a crescent of atmosphere lit up.
In the darkness below it a long cylindrical spaceship with a spoked ring around it's first third, and fins with engine pods spaced around its rear section (facing the viewer). The rear section is a collection of clustered cones, like bullets in a revolver, tips pointing towards the back.
Cover text reads (author's name in lower case)
'The span here is mind-boggling ... a breathtaking journey'
Good Book Guide
alastair
reynolds
Revelation Space

October 5, 2025 at 3:39 PM

QuiteBrief

@quitebrief.bsky.social

#bookreview 📚💙 📚🪐
Fan of:
- Alternate realities
- Fighting AI
- Super high tech
- Rabbits
- Worldsbuilding
Try
@mikecarey.bsky.social's
Infinity Gate
bookshop.org/p/books/infi...
A small cast of characters play pivotal roles in a clash of empires that span every conceivable version of Earth

Cover of M. R. Carey's Infinity Gate

A view from space where half of a planet (Earth?) is visible on the left side of the cover with its sun is just peeking around the top right side of it, creating lens flare.
The planet has vertical strips of other landscapes superimposed over it that roughly match the geography (which could be North and South America). They are, left to right
A red tinted atmosphere
A dusty desert
Brown, rocky with clouds
Green with clouds and water
Orange and blocky, with clouds.

Cover text reads
The War For
The Multiverse
Has Begun
Inifinity
Gate
M. R. Carey
The Million-Copy Bestselling Author

October 5, 2025 at 1:14 AM

QuiteBrief

@quitebrief.bsky.social

#bookreview 📚💙 📚🪐 📚⚔️
Fan of:
- Sherlock Holmes
- Photographic memory
- Twitch
- Gardening
Try
@robertjbennett.bsky.social's
The Tainted Cup
www.robertjacksonbennett.com/shadow-of-th...
An eccentric detective & her assistant try to solve a series of unusual murders that have started...sprouting up.

Cover of Robert Jackson Bennett's The Tainted Cup.
Gotta say that artist Will Staehle outdid himself on this one.
A dark blue background with drawings of gold geometric patterns (looking like inlaid wood) in gold trace the edges of the book while photo realistic vines creep in from the left.
Center is a spilled goblet with a bouquet of flowers growing up from the spill, each flower is a skull in the center surrounded by petals.
An unrolled scroll across the bouquet reads The Tainted Cup
In each corner of the cover is the outline of a figure. Top left a woman in a dress top right a man with a lowered sword and a conical hat wearing a long coat. Bottom right a man with a pointed helmet and a sheathed sword. Bottom left a woman in a long flowing dress.
Cover text reads
Nationally Bestselling Author
The Tainted Cup
Robert Jackson Bennett

October 4, 2025 at 3:54 PM

QuiteBrief

@quitebrief.bsky.social

#bookreview 📚💙 📚🪐
Fan of:
- Uri, not Ross, is your favorite Geller
- Con games
- Arrested Development & X-Men
- The CIA's Stargate
Try
@darylwriterguy.bsky.social's
Spoonbenders
darylgregory.com/books/spoonb...
A family of disgraced psychics try to get by after a disastrous talk show appearance.

Cover of Daryl Gregory's Spoonbenders
Cameo portraits hang on light blue wallpaper that has white dots.
A portrait is at each corner and one in the center
Top left - a man looks at a spoon bending in the air in front of him
Bottom left A woman has a jiggly oscilliscope style line plotted over her head.
Top right - A woman with a cloud of red dots around her head
Bottom right - A man with a fedora and a two of hearts playing card in the band of the hat
Center A man with a double sine wave over his head.
Cover text reads
Spoonbenders
A Novel Daryl Gregory
"Hilarious, heartfelt, and brimming with humanity."
-Cynthia D'Aprix Sweeny
author of The Nest

September 28, 2025 at 3:13 PM

QuiteBrief

@quitebrief.bsky.social

#bookreview 📚💙 📚🪐 📚⚔️
Fan of:
- Plague magic
- Going through bodies like Kleenex
- That literary New Wave feel
- Side effects
@kameronhurley.com's
Meet Me In The Future: Stories
www.kameronhurley.com/writing/meet...
A short story collection that explores the limits of gender, mortality and causality.

Cover of Kameron Hurley's Meet Me In The Future: Stories
Cover is a green/gray background with tiny white spheres leaving trails towards the edges of the cover. A red drawing of a giant jawed beetle, coming in from cover left, seen from the top spreads it's jaws on a yellow background to chew on the Future in the title.
Cover text reads
Meet Me In The Future
Stories
Kameron
Hurley
"Kameron Hurley is ferociously imaginative - with an emphasis on ferocious."
- Lauren Beukes, author of The Shining Girls

September 14, 2025 at 11:08 PM

QuiteBrief

@quitebrief.bsky.social

#bookreview 📚💙 📚🪐 📚⚔️
Fan of:
- Urban Fantasy
- Pop culture references
- Paperwork
Try
@stevenbrust.bsky.social's
The Good Guys
bookshop.org/p/books/good...
A team from a secret society tracks down a magical murderer, but when the job gets nasty, they have to ask themselves: are they the good guys?

Cover of Steven Brust's The Good Guys.
Title is written in yellow outlined text with a bullet flying between good and guys. Background is a blue and white graph paper grid.
Cover text reads
They can teleport, stop bullets, and read minds
They're the good guys - aren't they?
Good
Guys
New York Times Bestselling Author
Steven Brust

September 14, 2025 at 3:13 AM

QuiteBrief

@quitebrief.bsky.social

#bookreview 📚💙 📚🪐
Fan of:
- Corporate culture
- The bad guys
- Satire
- Animals saying the quiet part loud.
Try
@scalzi.com's
Starter Villain
whatever.scalzi.com/2023/09/19/s...
An average guy inherits his uncle's James Bond style crime syndicate and the organizational headaches that come with it.

Cover of John Scalzi's Starter Villain.
A photo realistic oil painting portrait of a brown and white long haired tabby cat from the chest up wearing a brown suit, white shirt and blue tie.

Cover text reads
Meet the new boss
Starter Villain
New York Times Bestselling Author
John Scalzi

September 12, 2025 at 5:55 PM

QuiteBrief

@quitebrief.bsky.social

#bookreview 📚💙 📚🪐
Fan of:
- Hard SF
- First contact
- Information theory
- Arachnophilia
- Uplift
Try
@aptshadow.bsky.social's
Children of Time
adriantchaikovsky.com/children-of-...
A terraforming experiment goes awry but it may be the last, best hope for the survivors of a devastated earth.

Cover of Adrian Tchaikovsky's Children Of Time.
A blocky, long, rectangular spaceship floats in the lower right corner, bathed in a beam of sunlight reflecting off of the green planet shown in the upper left corner of the cover.
Cover text reads
"The smartest evolutionary
world-building you'll ever read."
-Peter F. Hamilton.
Children
of Time
(A gold bordered medallion reads:
Science fiction WINNER Book of the year
The
Arthur
C. Clarke
Award
In association with
SFX )
Adrian Tchaikovsky

September 6, 2025 at 9:38 PM

QuiteBrief

@quitebrief.bsky.social

#bookreview 📚💙 📚🪐
Fan of:
- Heists!
- Adventure serials
- The job never going smooth
Try
@zanzjan.bsky.social's
Finder
zanzjan.net/writing/bibl...
The MC has to repossess the spaceship of a gangster who runs a collection of orbital habitats, so there’s no way it’s going to be that easy...or is it?

Cover of Suzanne Palmer's Finder
Angular spaceships float in space in front of a giant smooth pyramid.
The ships are mostly black and gray against a blue/black backdrop of space.
A white ship shaped like an arrowhead jets blue exhaust, jetting across the middle of the cover.
Cover text reads:
Finder
Hugo Award-Winning Author
Suzanne Palmer

September 3, 2025 at 3:11 AM

QuiteBrief

@quitebrief.bsky.social

#bookreview 📚💙 📚🪐 📚🩸
Fan of:
- Historical fiction
- Novellas
- Mythology
- Going vegetarian
Try:
@pdjeliclark.bsky.social's
Ring Shout
pdjeliclark.com/ring-shout/
African American women in the 1920's hunt monsters infiltrating the Klan, so somehow there's still room for those a-holes to get worse.

Cover of P. Djeli Clark's Ring Shout
A black red and white cover features a pointed klan hood, where the eye holes have mouths with teeth.
A pair of Black hands reach up on either side of the hood, thumbs facing the viewer.
Cover text reads
P. Djeli Clark
RIng
Shout

September 2, 2025 at 3:35 AM

Reposted by QuiteBrief

ceej

@ceej.online

my father-in-law is a “I know a guy” Guy. sadly all the old Guys are aging out of the Guy Economy. Guys are fundamentally incompatible with Hustle Culture because it’s not about “winning” a deal, it’s about collecting favors and goodwill in a mutually-beneficial cycle. protect your local Guy Economy

August 30, 2025 at 2:51 PM

QuiteBrief

@quitebrief.bsky.social

#bookreview 📚💙 📚🪐 📚⚔️
Fan of:
- R rated sitcoms
- Smartasses
- Kids with powers.
- Death
Try:
@theauthorguy.bsky.social's
A Dirty Job
www.chrismoore.com/books/a-dirt...
In this hilarious novel, single dad & thrift store owner Charlie has to collect objects that hold souls, or Bad Things happen.

Cover of Christopher Moore's A Dirty Job
A cartoon drawing of a large wheeled pink baby carriage (or pram for UK readers) holding an adorable infant version of skeleton-in-a-robe anthropomorphized Death with tiny scythe and pink bow, snuggled up in blankets, as the leg and sleeve of an adult in a pinstripe suit can be seen pushing the carriage.
Cover text reads
New York Times Bestseller
Christopher
Moore
Author of You Suck and Lamb
A Novel
A Dirty Job
"[A] comically epic battle between the forces of light and darkness...close to that
perfect mix of absurdist humor and genuine human feeling" - San Francisco Chronicle
Now with More Moore! <- in a gear shaped sticker on the cover.

August 30, 2025 at 9:04 PM

QuiteBrief

@quitebrief.bsky.social

#bookreview 📚💙 📚🪐 📚⚔️
Fan of:
- The Arabian Nights
- Working moms
- Indiana Jones
- This is more than I signed on for
- Crime
- Frenemies
Try
@shannonchakraborty.bsky.social's
The Adventures of Amina al-Sirafi
www.sachakraborty.com
A retired pirate has to get her band back together for one last job

Cover of Shanon Chakraborty's The Adventures of Amina al-Sirafi

Note: interesting that the cover art has 'Al-' in the title capitalized, but it's 'al-' in text referencing the book.

Drawing showing a side view of an underwater octopus-like sea monster with way too many tentacles attacking a wooden sailing ship with two triangular sails that is less than a quarter of the monster's size.
The sky in the background of the ship is swirls of blue on tan, implying a map.
Cover text reads:
The Adventures of
Amina Al-Sirafi
a novel
Shannon Chakraborty
Bestselling Author of the Daevabad Trilogy

August 30, 2025 at 3:39 PM

QuiteBrief

@quitebrief.bsky.social

#bookreview 📚💙 📚🪐
Fan of:
- Baked goods from Hell
- Managing divas
- Workplace relationships
Try:
Sarah Khun's
Heroine Complex
www.heroinecomplex.com/excerpt/
A superhero’s PA goes from snubbing mean girl bloggers to fighting demons, which is still easier than dealing with her co-workers.

Cover of Sarah Kuhn's Heroine Complex
Background image is a city bakery with floor to ceiling windows.
In the upper left a woman in a black jumpsuit executes a flying kick tough a cupcake with a fanged mouth and long tongue while in the lower right a woman in jeans, a hoodie, and t-shirt with a cartoon duck looks sideways, hand on cocked hip while holding a vortex of flame upright in the other. Fanged cupcakes fly through the air around them.
The book title is written on a diagonal yellow banner that separates the two women.
Cover text reads
Heroine
Complex
Sarah Kuhn

August 27, 2025 at 10:03 PM

Reposted by QuiteBrief

#BookSky moderator 💙📚

@booksky.club

new blog post on the #booksky blog! 📚💙

How To Get the Most Out of Your Time on BookSky ( with tips for readers and writers!) ⤵️

How to Get the Most out of Your Time on BookSky

The BlueSky thread I did about this a while back was quite popular, so I wanted to expand on it and update it with some new recommendations for you. 1) Be really, really generous with your hearts/rep...

booksky.ink

August 26, 2025 at 9:05 PM

QuiteBrief

@quitebrief.bsky.social

#bookreview 📚💙 📚🪐 📚⚔️
Fan of:
- Toy Story
- Plush MCs
- Foster's Home For Imaginary Friends
- Empathy
- Who Framed Roger Rabbit
- Dryers
Try
@bytylerhayes.bsky.social's
The Imaginary Corpse
tyler-hayes.com
A stuffed triceratops' latest case uncovers a threat to his home reality of discarded ideas.

Cover of Tyler Hayes' The Imaginary Corpse.
Skyscrapers tilt at odd angles in the background in a stark gray, red, white and black drawing.
Top left a large hand reaches down and is touched by a triceratops in a fedora and a trenchcoat standing erect - left forepaw in his pocket and the right touching the thumb and forefinger of the hand.
Cover text reads:
Tyler Hayes
The Imaginary Corpse

August 25, 2025 at 3:36 AM

QuiteBrief

@quitebrief.bsky.social

#bookreview 📚💙 📚🪐
Fan of:
- Urban 📚⚔️
- New Orleans
- PI in over his head
- Resident gods
- Losing at cards
Try
@bryancamp.bsky.social's
The City of Lost Fortunes
www.bryancamp.com
A man with the magical power to find things gets in to trouble and the only way out is solving a luck god's murder.

Cover of Bryan Camp's The City of Lost Fortunes
A green background with a gold triangle set in three gold circles.
The triangle has nested squares and circles with the figure of a man falling with arms outstretched, like he's spinning away.
Small circles in the outer circles feature:
- a woman standing
- a man walking, reaching behind him
- the Egyptian god Thoth
- a Man with right leg bent and arms bent - dancing?
- A figure in a dress with giant bird wings sweeping out behind them
- An old person bent over using a cane
Each corner of the cover has a circle with, respectively:
A dagger
A goblet
A wand
A pentagram
Cover text reads:
A Crescent City Novel
"[A] fantastic and enthralling puzzle of a story.
Camp's thoroughtly engaging debut is
reminiscent of Neil Gaiman's American Gods."
-Library Journal, STARRED
The City
of Lost
Fortunes
Bryan Camp

August 24, 2025 at 4:25 PM

QuiteBrief

@quitebrief.bsky.social

#booksky 📚💬 📚🪐📚⚔️
Anyone recall a book scene that was a figure crossing a desert, occasionally scattering some of the ashes of a defeated wizard to make it tougher for the wizard to come back?
A friend mentioned this gold standard for spellcaster Double Taps so (IIRC) it might have been pre-2000?

August 24, 2025 at 3:29 AM

QuiteBrief

@quitebrief.bsky.social

#bookreview 📚💙 📚🪐 📚⚔️
Fan of:
- Grimdark!
- Sauron's side of things
- Necromancy
- Finding your stuff
Try
@michaelrfletcher.bsky.social's
Black Stone Heart
michaelrfletcher.com/works/
A Big Bad that lost bigly comes back from the dead with a thirst for revenge - but will it be different this time?

Cover of Michael R. Fletcher's Black Stone Heart
A panting in blacks and purples - a man in medieval traveler's clothes has his long hair and cloak whipped to the right by wind as he looks out over a blasted rocky landscape, where jagged black mountains float in the sky around a dark sun with purple lights swirling in to it.
A dark castle is barely visible in the upper left on a mountain.
Cover text reads:
Black
Stone
Heart
"A visceral masterpiece"
-Petros Triantafyllou
-Booknest.eu
Michael R Fletcher

August 24, 2025 at 2:26 AM

QuiteBrief

@quitebrief.bsky.social

#bookreview 📚💙 📚🪐 📚⚔️
Fan of:
- 70's fantasy
- Morally gray MC's
- Law vs Chaos
- Dark sorcery
- Double edged swords (ha!)
Try:
Michael Moorcock's
Elric of Melinbone
bookshop.org/p/books/elri...
A weak sorcerer emperor's light touch ruling a declining empire results in a challenge to the throne

Cover of Michael Moorcock's Elric of Melinbone.
A thin albino man wearing black boots, a loincloth and harness kneels, holding the crossbar of a long black sword.
He's perched on a stonework ledge with carvings underneath, while carved pillars are visible in the fog behind him.
Cover text reads
Michael
Moorcock
Elric of
Melinbone
An ELRIC Novel

August 23, 2025 at 9:42 PM

QuiteBrief

@quitebrief.bsky.social

#bookreview 📚💙 📚🪐
Fan of:
- YA SF
- NH's black flies
Try
David Arnold's
The Electric Kingdom
davidarnoldbooks.com/the-electric...
A teen forced to explore post apocalypse New England keeps encountering a mysterious figure who is supernaturally good at being in the right place at the right time.

Cover of David Arnold's The Electric Kingdom
To the center left, woman in a coat, jeans and boots wearing a red backpack walks along a shallow stone filled brook. A black dog walks alongside her. The trees on either side are autumn colors. The rest of the image is warped above, below and to her side, looking like she's moving through a streaked glass torus.
Title text is white block lettering in the center.
Cover text reads
"A postapocalyptic
nesting doll of a tale."
-Melissa Albert, New York Times
bestselling author of The Hazel Wood
The
Electric
Kingdom
New York Times Bestseller
David Arnold
Author of Mosquitoland

August 22, 2025 at 3:28 AM

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