Who is Del Sefton anyway?

Del's recent and current nightstand (Jul-Dec 2025)

We'll see how often I update this. Not including books on 'the craft.' Lately, in addition to a lot of editing my own:

• Kay's The Lions of Al-Rassan. He does it again, setting a pseudo-historical novel in the Reconquista. Dense but worth the read, not a page turner, but a thinker.

• Iain M. Banks' Look to Windward. A reread, one of my favorite novels in his Culture series (tied with all other novels in his Culture series except Consider Phlebas and Inversions). What a creative mind! Unfortunately marred, like all his other works, by an (IMO) unnecessary scene of grotesquerie.

• Glen Cook's Shadow Games, a Black Company novel, one of the many sequels

• Guy Gavriel Kay's Under Heaven, an interesting historical novel (with slight fantasy elements) set in 8th century Tang Dynasty China. I've wanted to read this author for quite a while, based on what I've heard about him. I found the book a little overstuffed, but I can see why he has the rep he does.

• A couple of <censored> books, as comparable titles for my upcoming fourth+ novels.

• Jane Austen's Persuasion (not as great as Pride and Prejudice, I think, but still a great Regency Romance; she's just such a game-changing author)

• Margaret Atwood's Oryx & Crake (denser than and as chilling as The Handmaid's Tale)

• Swords and Dark Magic (a collection of fantasy short stories, primarily purchased because (1) it was on sale on Amazon and (2) had stories from a couple of authors I particularly like, such as K. J. Parker)

• Martha Wells' Murderbot oeuvre (thanks to a steal of a Humble Bundle sale; light and fun reading)

• Le Guin's The Lathe of Heaven (every time I read a work of hers, it is a humbling revelation)

• Patrick O'Brian's Aubrey/Maturin series (just finished a full reread of all 20 novels; even better now than they were two decades ago when I was introduced to them; I would have a hard time finding anyone who had produced such high-quality work for so long a period; how many semi-colons can I use in these parentheses?)