C0smic Occurence

September Reading Wrap Up

This might have been one of the hardest starts to the school year I’ve ever had. Lots of factors contributed to this, including me completely disconnecting from teaching over the summer. This allowed for a lot of self-care, reading, and ensuring I have a life and identity outside of teaching. However, it did make diving back into the deep end a very abrupt transition. My stress levels are much lower now than at the start of the month, but it meant for a lot of more mindless reading, which is normally something that kicks in nearer to Christmas time.

I also got stuck in the Chicago Airport for an entire day because Trump decided to go golfing in Chicago and used the public airport. Missed my connecting flight and I have never seen a more packed airport than that. I am writing this post having only gotten a few hours of sleep, and hoping that October brings a bit more calm my way.

Longform Reviews

10 of My Favorite Books about FALLing in Love

I tend to focus more on the speculative fiction side of my reading on this blog, but I’m also an avid Romance reader! I decided to be a little cheeky today and go for a pun instead of something properly Autumn themed. I decided that I’d like to share some of my favorite genre-romances. It was surprisingly tough to narrow down my list, and I erred on excluding a few of my favorites that felt too close to some of the others here. For those new to my blog, the vast majority of these are going to be gay (all except the first, in fact). I do read Romance outside m/m, but it’s a lot fewer and tend to have less of an impact on me.

I have excluded hybrid stories that also focus on other A-Plots in addition to Romance, such as Captive Prince (Military Fantasy), The Darkness Outside Us (Existential Thriller), or How To Survive this Fairytale (The Messy Process of Healing from Trauma). Also, happy endings are guaranteed! Most of these I don’t have longform reviews for, but the covers will take you to their goodreads pages!

Miss Percy’s Pocket Guide (to the Care and Feeding of British Dragons)

I’ve been finding it more difficult to focus on audiobooks recently. Lots of stress at work means music is generally the better choice. After a come-to-Jesus moment with spacing out for an entire novella (my sincerest apologies to Bujold; I’ll return to you in print format) I thought I needed to disconnect from audiobooks totally until things calmed down. Turns out I just needed a cozy little fantasy story about a middle-aged woman inheriting a dragon egg.

The Premise:
Miss Mildred Percy doesn’t love her life. She lives with her sister far longer than she ever planned to, doesn’t particularly like her sister, and has disconnected entirely from her adventurous youth. When she inherits a trunk of oddities from her great-uncle, it turns out that a dragon was in her future, as was a vicar whom may or may not be the type of man she could envision her life with.

Read if You Like: cozy fantasy that isn’t overly twee, incompetent villains, finally standing up for yourself

Avoid if You Dislike: small stakes, petty family drama, larger characters getting the spotlight

My Fall Reading List

As we’re staring down the last three months of the year, I already know that I want to prioritize catching up on sequels. That was a fairly recent topic for a Tuesday Top 10 post though, so instead I’m going to focus on new-to-me reads that I’d like to read before we ring in 2027. Typically the winter months see me moving more into comics and romances, but I don’t want to get totally disconnected from reading queer speculative fiction either.

I will happily say that I have read (or attempted to read, in the case of An Accident of Dragons) every book I promised to read in 2026, so I don’t need to worry about anything on that front. However, will I be cramming all of these plus the sequels I want to try to prioritize plus wherever my mood takes me? Probably not. Let’s consider this list an aspirational one, rather than the most realistic portrait of what you can expect to see me reviewing in the near However, if I keep saying that I can read every book, it’ll come true someday.

Automatic Noodle

There are only 2 novellas that I hadn’t yet read from the 2026 Hugo Nomination slate. I know I’m not interested in Vernon’s offering (though part of that might simply be exhaustion at her getting nominated every year), but had wanted to read Automatic Noodle before the awards were announced. In the end, this was a fairly disappointing slate of Novellas. My pick was Cinder House, which I authentically enjoyed. I was happy to see it on the shortlist, but am still not sure if I consider it Award-Winner material. Automatic Noodle, like the rest of the lot, has some areas I see as significant flaws. However, it’s not the style of book that I would have ever put forward as a nominee, so perhaps I’m judging it on criteria that don’t really fit. It’s great chill pick for someone looking for something quirky, knowing that it isn’t going to be an emotional rollercoaster.

The Premise:
Four robots wake up to find their company has absconded to the United States (California is its own country now), threatening their already dubious freedom. They decide to open a a hand-pulled noodle restaurant, despite robot corporate ownership being very illegal.

Read if You Like: allegories for otherness, weird futuristic worlds, stories with personal stakes

Avoid if You Dislike: robots that feel like humans, heavy-handed themes

Yours Celestially – An Offbeat Romance

What an interesting little book this was. What I picked up for a Romance Book Club ended up feeling at once very much like a romance and nothing at all like the romantasy that’s being put out now. I do wish I’d read it at a time when I had more brain power to throw at the book, because I appreciate how this book didn’t neatly fall into any categories of stories in my mind. Come for the optimistic vibes, stay for conversations that refreshingly don’t feel like they’re from a reality dating show.

The Premise:
In a vaguely utopian future, a company has gotten a handle on reviving you from accidental death (for a small monthly charge). Metatron is the AI who runs Limbo and consoles the souls of those waiting for new bodies. He’s desperately in love with one of his current charges, however. Meanwhile Sasha has a new body, but can’t get a fresh start at a new life because he keeps feeling Metatron’s love pangs as physical sensations in his new body. He decides to take a job at the company to ask Metatron to tone it down, and ideally get his life back on track.

Read if You Like: Romances with parallel couples, characters making up for past mistakes, consistent empathy, casual diversity

Avoid if You Dislike: ambiguous worldbuilding, characters who make mistakes, unconventional romance structures, upbeat portrayals of capitalism

10 Books That Made Ambitious Choices

As Autumn sets in, this is typically the time of year that I transition to simpler and less brainpower-intense books. We’ll see when this instinct fully kicks in. I’ve certainly spent more time on webnovels than I usually do, and I can already feel the quiet siren call of holiday romances calling my name.

This post is the opposite. I wanted to highlight some books where authors took big risks that – in my opinion – paid off wonderfully. These books all have aspects that I think are divisive and mean that readers tend to either love it or hate it.

Wife Shaped Bodies – So Much Fungus!

It’s unfair of me to claim that Fungi are having a moment right now, considering some of the oddly high amount of mushroom content came from books half a decade old, or my tabletop group’s year long campaign dedicated to them elevating their fungal deity to ascendency. However, I do feel like I’m seeing mushrooms around more the past year or two. Maybe it’s because The Last of Us show was such a hit?

Anyways, I thought this one was serviceable. Great mushroom content, but that’s about the only thing I can recommend the story on. I think there’s a New Weird reinterpretation of The Handmaid’s Tale out there for me to love, but this one didn’t hit the notes I needed it to.

The Premise:
Nicole’s mother just died, and it is her wedding day. She hasn’t left her house … ever. And now she must obey the whims of a man she has never met. While living in his home, she becomes connected with the mysterious Teagan, whom she as long admired from afar.

Read if You Like: ambiguity on bodies, weird science, disturbing sex scenes

Avoid if You Dislike: mushrooms; extensive depictions of marital abuse, sexual assault, and pregnancy (amongst other things)

Striker V: In the Meantime

This is a sequel to Striker V: Elements of Change, which I enjoyed as a a great innovation on an enjoyable but played-out superhero formula. This book stays that course, and I think most people will have a similar reaction to both. Technically, this collection could probably be read as a standalone, but Vidmar doesn’t give a ton of backstory/context that would help ground readers. I also thought Elements of Change was the stronger book overall, despite this entry having more consistent high points throughout the book.

The Premise: This collection of stories and novellas follows various characters from the first Striker V book. They range from mundane conversations full of found family to stories with a more traditional superhero action focus.

Read if You Like: the humanity of superhumans, slice-of-life elements, bittersweet resolutions

Avoid if You Dislike: superhero stories, combat to be the primary driver of plot, mediocre combat scenes

10 Indie Books I can’t Stop Thinking About

I’m thankful for a lot of things about my relationship with the r/fantasy and r/QueerSFF subreddits, but one of the biggest has been their insistence on highlighting self-published and small press books. There’s dedicated communities hyping stories that nobody has heard of, a recurring self-published/small press squares both sub’s yearly reading challenges, and a willingness to talk about books that get no press in many other spaces.

Since I’ve started tracking my reading, lots of these books have ended up as personal favorites. So here are 10 Self-Published and Small Press books I’m obsessed with that I think everyone should consider reading.