Her Smoke Rose Up Forever by James Tiptree Jr.

This is a story collection (short to novella length) rather than just the title story. While some of these stories are clearly pretty amazing, reading 508 pages of depressing, hopeless, slightly insane stories is a bit much. Given some sort of choice, I'd have rather gotten 3 collections instead of a single one.

Pages: 508

The Good Man Jesus and the Scoundrel Christ by Phillip Pullman

I read His Dark Materials years ago. The stories were interesting and I am generally unable to pick up on religious subtexts. Seriously, I read the Chronicles of Narnia in middle or high school without picking up on anything. I figured I should attempt to read some other works by Phillip Pullman and The Good Man Jesus and the Scoundrel Christ was the only one I'd heard of.

This book was really short. The pages number up to 245, but the margins are large, the book itself is small, and there are many blank or half pages due to new chapters. I was disappointed that the book was so short and lacked much of an original twist.  is part of the Myth series, wherein authors rewrite myths. Sort of like Little Red Riding Hood remake The Wolf's Side. I have not read the Bible in particular (small bits and Genesis only), so I don't entirely understand how this deviates. The idea is sort of interesting, but not interesting enough for an entire book.

Pages: 245