Second paragraph of third chapter:

When he’d gone to speak to Unfair about his grand plan for selling Ichigo, Dov had one question: “So, Ichigo’s a boy, right?”

This is a lovely Bildungsroman about two people from Cailfornia who end up writing video games together in Massachusetts (and then move back to California). They live and love and learn, awful and glorious things happen to them, and it all works out to a conclusion that isn’t quite what I expected but was very satisfactory anyway. I thought that the description of the process of writing video games, and the price that is paid for the work mentally and physically, was particularly compelling, but I also kept reading just to find out what would happen next in the relationship between the two main characters. It is very good. You can get it here.

Of this year’s Arthur C. Clarke Award submissions, Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow had the most owners on LibraryThing and the most ratings on Goodreads, and pretty solid ratings as well. Unfortunately it’s not in any way science fiction; it’s set in contemporary America, over the last couple of decades, and although the games in the story are fictional, I don’t believe there’s anything there that could not be accomplished with real-life technology. So it was not eligible for the award.

This was the top unread book by a woman on my unread pile. Next on that stack is Demon Copperhead, by Barbara Kingsolver.