epigraph

Grace. she/her. mood reader. earnest reviewer.

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I Contain Multitudes: The Microbes Within Us and a Grander View of Life

Invisible Planets: Contemporary Chinese Science Fiction in Translation

Post from the Pagebound Club forum

13h

epigraph

Edited

Adrian Tchaikovsky - where to start?

Hey PB,

As what it says in the title, I’ve heard lots of good things about Tchaikovsky and I’m trying to broaden my reading on speculative fiction. His name always comes up as one of the best in the genre but when I checked his bibliography, it was quite daunting. 😵‍💫 It turns out he’s quite prolific! Can someone please recommend what could be a good starting point? Preferably standalone, novellas or short stories only please. 🙏🏼 I don’t think I can commit to a series right now.

Also, just a heads up that I’ll be saving this post so I can eventually go back to the people who made recommendations and let them know when I’ve read it. Thanks in advance! ❤️

epigraph commented on a post

You Made a Fool of Death with Your Beauty

mymindspeaksbooks

😬

Maybe an unpopular opinion but this book wasn’t for me 🙈 it was over-dramatic and the random twist and turns had me like: whAtTTt

it was like the characters could have made literally any decision and it would have been like 🤷‍♀️ fair enough. rather than deep characterisation where the characters lead the story themselves

I did like the deeper element of grief to add to the story though - this is what made me continue reading

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Mardi Gras + Carnival 2026

epigraph commented on a post

sailorsoftgirl

Edited

a note on Ariel

For those of you who are looking to dive into Sylvia Plath's Ariel, please keep in mind that depending on the edition you select you may end up reading a completely different selection of poems than another person.

This is because Plath's husband, Ted, who is also featured on this list, published the collection posthumously and made significant revisions to Sylvia's manuscript, changing the title, rearranging the order, chucking out several pieces, and adding in others. This collection is referred to as the 1965 edition and contains 43 poems, 15 of which weren't in the original manuscript. Additionally, some of these pieces are only in the U.S. version or were censored or removed from other versions. EDIT: This is the version the quest links to. Perhaps the restored edition might be added so users can read their choice of edition?

In 2004, Sylvia and Ted's daughter, Frieda, worked with publishers to release a version that restores the content and order from the original manuscript. This version contains 40 poems, 12 of which do not appear in the 1965 edition.

There's a lot of discourse surrounding the validity of both of these editions which I won't get into here. I just wanted to provide this information so people are aware.

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kishmish

New Badge!

I love the new badge! It’s absolutely beautiful! I was already very excited to read (and try to review!) more poetry this year, but with this gorgeous badge to work toward, I’m now even more excited! Thank you, Lucy! 🫶🏽 (I assume? If not, thank you, badge designer and also still J&L!)

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Intro to Poetry 🍋📜❤️‍🔥

🏆 // 890 joined

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In the words of Leonard Cohen, "poetry is just the evidence of life...if your life is burning well, poetry is just the ash." This quest is for those who love poetry, hate poetry, want to write it, read it, or perhaps have nothing to do with it (or all of that at once)!

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Poetry Starter Pack

Bronze: Finished 5 Main Quest books.

epigraph commented on a post from the Pagebound Club forum

jenniferPagebound

32 new avatar colors are live!

We just released 32 new color variants of our current avatars, focusing on increasing the skintone range of our human-like avatars. Some of the more popular avatars, like the ghost, dragon, and alien, have more colors also :) We'll be coming out with more colors and brand new avatars soon!

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Invisible Planets: Contemporary Chinese Science Fiction in Translation

Ken Liu

Award-winning translator and author Ken Liu presents a collection of short speculative fiction from China. Some stories have won awards; some have been included in various 'Year's Best' anthologies; some have been well reviewed by critics and readers; and some are simply Ken's personal favorites. Many of the authors collected here (with the obvious exception of Liu Cixin) belong to the younger generation of 'rising stars'. In addition, three essays at the end of the book explore Chinese science fiction. Liu Cixin's essay, The Worst of All Possible Universes and The Best of All Possible Earths, gives a historical overview of SF in China and situates his own rise to prominence as the premier Chinese author within that context. Chen Qiufan's The Torn Generation gives the view of a younger generation of authors trying to come to terms with the tumultuous transformations around them. Finally, Xia Jia, who holds the first Ph.D. issued for the study of Chinese SF, asks What Makes Chinese Science Fiction Chinese?.

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Hild (The Hild Sequence, #1)

Nicola Griffith

Hild is born into a world in transition. In seventh-century Britain, small kingdoms are merging, usually violently. A new religion is coming ashore; the old gods’ priests are worrying. Edwin of Northumbria plots to become overking of the Angles, ruthlessly using every tool at his disposal: blood, bribery, belief. Hild is the king’s youngest niece. She has the powerful curiosity of a bright child, a will of adamant, and a way of seeing the world—of studying nature, of matching cause with effect, of observing human nature and predicting what will happen next—that can seem uncanny, even supernatural, to those around her. She establishes herself as the king’s seer. And she is indispensable—until she should ever lead the king astray. The stakes are life and death: for Hild, her family, her loved ones, and the increasing numbers who seek the protection of the strange girl who can read the world and see the future. Hild is a young woman at the heart of the violence, subtlety, and mysticism of the early medieval age—all of it brilliantly and accurately evoked by Nicola Griffith’s luminous prose. Recalling such feats of historical fiction as Hilary Mantel’s Wolf Hall and Sigrid Undset’s Kristin Lavransdatter, Hild brings a beautiful, brutal world—and one of its most fascinating, pivotal figures, the girl who would become St. Hilda of Whitby—to vivid, absorbing life.

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Menewood (The Hild Sequence, #2)

Nicola Griffith

In the much anticipated sequel to Hild, Nicola Griffith's Menewood transports readers back to seventh-century Britain, a land of rival kings and religions poised for epochal change. Hild is no longer the bright child who made a place in Edwin Overking's court with her seemingly supernatural insight. She is eighteen, honed and tested, the formidable Lady of Elmet, now building her personal stronghold in the valley of Menewood. But Edwin needs his most trusted advisor. Old alliances are fraying. Younger rivals are snapping at his heels. War is brewing--bitter war, winter war. Not knowing who to trust he becomes volatile and unpredictable. Hild begins to understand the true extent of the chaos ahead, and now she must navigate the turbulence and fight to protect both the kingdom and her own people. Hild will face the losses and devastation of total war, and then she must find a new strength, the implacable determination to forge a radically different path for herself and her people. In the valley, her last redoubt, her community slowly takes root. She trains herself and her unexpected allies in new ways of thinking as she prepares for one last wager: risking all on a single throw for a better future... In the last decade, Hild has become a beloved classic of epic storytelling. Menewood picks up where that journey left off, and exceeds it in every way.

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Rakesfall

Vajra Chandrasekera

Rakesfall is a groundbreaking, standalone science fiction epic about two souls bound together from here until the ends of time, from the author of The Saint of Bright Doors Some stories take more than one lifetime to tell. There are wrongs that echo through the ages, friendships that outpace the claws of death, loves that leave their mark on civilization, and promises that nothing can break. This is one such story. Annelid and Leveret met after the war, but before the peace. They found each other in a torn-up nation, peering through propaganda to grasp a deeper truth. And in a demon-haunted wood, another act of violence linked them and propelled their souls on a journey throughout the ages. No world can hold them, no life can bind them, and they'll never leave each other behind. But their journey will not be easy. In every lifetime, oppressors narrow the walls of possibility, shaping reality to fit their own needs. And behind the walls of history, the witches of the red web swear that every throne will fall. Tracing two souls through endless lifetimes, Rakesfall is a virtuosic exploration of what stories can be. As Annelid and Leveret reincarnate ever deeper into the future, they will chase the edge of human possibility, in a dark science fiction epic unlike anything you've read before.

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The Saint of Bright Doors

Vajra Chandrasekera

The Saint of Bright Doors sets the high drama of divine revolutionaries and transcendent cults against the mundane struggles of modern life, resulting in a novel that is revelatory and resonant. Fetter was raised to kill, honed as a knife to cut down his sainted father. This gave him plenty to talk about in therapy. He walked among invisible devils and anti-gods that mock the mortal form. He learned a lethal catechism, lost his shadow, and gained a habit for secrecy. After a blood-soaked childhood, Fetter escaped his rural hometown for the big city, and fell into a broader world where divine destinies are a dime a dozen. Everything in Luriat is more than it seems. Group therapy is recruitment for a revolutionary cadre. Junk email hints at the arrival of a god. Every door is laden with potential, and once closed may never open again. The city is scattered with Bright Doors, looming portals through which a cold wind blows. In this unknowable metropolis, Fetter will discover what kind of man he is, and his discovery will rewrite the world.

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The Death of the Necromancer (Ile-Rien, #2)

Martha Wells

Nicholas Valiarde is a passionate, embittered nobleman with an enigmatic past. Consumed by thoughts of vengeance, he is consoled only by thoughts of the beautiful, dangerous Madeline. He is also the greatest thief in all of Ile-Rien... On the gas light streets of the city, he assumes the guise of a master criminal, stealing jewels from wealthy nobles to finance his quest for vengeance the murder of Count Montesq. Montesq orchestrated the wrongful execution of Nicholas's beloved godfather on false charges of necromancy--the art of divination through communion with spirits of the dead--a practice long outlawed in the kingdom of Ile-Rein. But now Nicholas's murderous mission is being interrupted by a series of eerie, unexplainable, even fatal events. Someone with tremendous magical powers is opposing him. Children vanish, corpses assume the visage of real people, mortal spells are cast, and traces of necromantic power that hasn't been used for centuries are found. And when a spiritualist unwittingly leads Nicholas to a decrepit mansion, the monstrous nature of his peril finally emerges in harrowing detail. Nicholas and his compatriots must destroy an ancient and awesome evil. Even the help of Ile-Rien's greatest sorcerer may not be enough, for Nicholas faces a woefully mismatched battle--and unthinkable horrors await the loser.

epigraph commented on a post from the Founder Announcements forum

jenniferPagebound

Product Updates + New App Version [1/15/2026]

Many new updates, big and small, coming at you - Please update your apps to see them!

Summary of changes:

On the app, a new "Feed" tab has been added to book pages. You can see status and progress updates from everyone on the site, along with stats for TBR, Finished etc across the site
Giveaways will be available next week, planned launch is Jan 19th! Once giveaways are live, you can find them on the Discover page under Books
The Mardi Gras/Carnival Special Event readalong starts today! Check Discuss to see the selections, badge, and how to participate
Our very first Limited Time Quest launched today, in partnership with Simon Books. Check out Discover Quests, we're very excited about this one!
Lists have been converted from the upvote/downvote system to a pure "Like" system
On your custom shelves, you now have a "breakdown by status" section to see how many books in that shelf are in each reading status (bonus: cool way to do personal challenges)
You can see how many books you finished in Quests you have not yet joined
On the "currently reading" section of the homefeed, your books are now sorted by most recently updated

Why are we moving from upvotes/downvotes to likes for Lists? The upvote/downvote system was meant for community moderation, however now that we have PageboundGuides as moderators, we're asking the community to leave list moderation to the Guides. We want to make sure folks feel welcome to make lists - if someone makes a personal list, please do not corrective comment. The Guides will take care of it :)

How do Giveaways work? We've partnered with Publishers and Authors to giveaway books to the community. Once live, the Giveaway link will be on the Discover Books page. You can browse all the giveaways there, and enter by filling out a form with contact info (so we can send you the book if you win!). We know many folks are often disappointed when giveaways are only in the US and Canada - want to share with y'all that we do not have control over where giveaways are active. That is up to the publisher and author! As we grow, we hope more international publishers and authors know about Pagebound and want to partner with us.

How does the new Feed tab work on book pages? Since forum posts are meant for evergreen discussion, and folks comment on their status cards and progress update cards to share personal updates, we wanted to give everyone a way to share those personal updates beyond their immediate followers. We also wanted to give folks a way to see who is reading or wants to read a certain book, even if they are not following them yet. The Feed tab shows all status update and progress update cards, so you can more easily discover personal convos and reading buddies.

We'll be back soon with more updates!

Thanks everyone and happy reading, Jennifer & Lucy

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epigraph commented on a post from the Pagebound Club forum

Lovely-Medieval-Ken

Edited

A book you hate

Tell me about a book you hate, dig into it, write a whole essay on why you hate, I love hearing about this stuff lol, it's so fun to see people so passionate about a book they either really love or hate. Vent that hatred/frustrations with whatever book here lmao.

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