Kevin C. Wong

February 2026

Fierce Women of Science Fiction, Fantasy & Horror Bundle

Fierce Women of Science Fiction, Fantasy & Horror from Humble Bundle is a bunch of novels and novellas from Open Road Media. Although there are novellas in the bundle (which are about 1/2 book size) there are also omnibus volumes so I guess 65 items is fair. One thing about looking at the omnibus images those must be generated art as the Witch World books are quite different thicknesses but look all the same in the images.

The bundle is $18 and includes:

The Iskryne series
  • A Companion to Wolves (Sarah Monette and Elizabeth Bear, 2007)
  • The Tempering of Men (Sarah Monette and Elizabeth Bear, 2011)
  • An Apprentice to Elves (Sarah Monette and Elizabeth Bear, 2015)

Karen Memory
  • Karen Memory (Elizabeth Bear, 2015)
  • Stone Mad (Elizabeth Bear, 2018) - next in the series, Angel Maker (2025)

The Highroad Trilogy
  • A Passage of Stars (Kate Elliott as Alis A. Rasmussen, 1990)
  • Revolution's Shore (Kate Elliott as Alis A. Rasmussen, 1990)
  • The Price of Ransom (Kate Elliott as Alis A. Rasmussen, 1990)

Crossroads
  • Spirit Gate (Kate Elliott, 2007)
  • Shadow Gate (Kate Elliott, 2008)
  • Traitor's Gate (Kate Elliott, 2009)

The Keeper (Sarah Langan, 2006) - Langan is an award-winning horror writer
The Missing (Sarah Langan, 2007)
Audrey's Door (Sarah Langan, 2009)

Newsflesh books
  • Feedback (Seanan McGuire as Mira Grant, 2016) - book 4

Newsflesh collections
  • Rise (Seanan McGuire as Mira Grant, 2016)

Newsflesh short fiction - all the below also in Rise
  • Countdown (Seanan McGuire as Mira Grant)
  • How Green This Land, How Blue This Sea (Seanan McGuire as Mira Grant)
  • The Day the Dead Came to Show and Tell (Seanan McGuire as Mira Grant)
  • Please Do Not Taunt the Octopus (Seanan McGuire as Mira Grant)
  • All the Pretty Little Horses (Seanan McGuire as Mira Grant)
  • Coming to You Live (Seanan McGuire as Mira Grant)

Parasitology
  • Chimera (Seanan McGuire as Mira Grant, 2015) - book 3

I didn't sort the rest as I realized this is too much stuff to buy. I'm only really interested in Witch World books which for $18 would be a good price but I also don't want a bunch of stuff I'm going to virtually toss.

Mind you if this were a comic book collection or a table-top RPG collection and the same scenario I might still buy it. But for novels I feel I would try to read many of these and waste my time.

Beauty (Robin McKinley)
Deerskin (Robin McKinley)

Black Helicoptres (Caitlin R Kiernan)
The Tindalos Asset (Caitlin R Kiernan)
Agents of Dreamland (Caitlin R Kiernan)

Burning Girls and Other Stories (Veronica Schanoes)

Child of Venus (Pamela Sargent)
The Shore of Women (Pamela Sargent)
Venus of Dreams (Pamela Sargent)
Venus of Shadows (Pamela Sargent)

China Mountain Zhang (Maureen F McHugh)

Dream Snake (Vonda N McIntyre)
The Starfarers Series #1-2 (Vonda N McIntyre) - Starfarers, Transition
The Starfarers Series #3-4 (Vonda N McIntyre) - Metaphase, Nautilus

Fathom (Cherie Priest)
The Family Plot (Cherie Priest)
The Toll (Cherie Priest)

Larque on the Wing (Nancy Springer)

My Real Children (Jo Walton)
Necessity (Jo Walton)
The Just City (Jo Walton)
The Philosopher Kings (Jo Walton)

Points of Departure (Pat Murphy)
The Falling Woman (Pat Murphy)
The Shadow Hunter (Pat Murphy)
The City, Not Long After (Pat Murphy)

Probability Moon (Nancy Kress)
Probability Sun (Nancy Kress)

The Female Man (Joanna Russ)

The Quantum Rose (Catherine Asaro)

The Salt Roads (Nalo Hopkinson)
Skin Folk (Nalo Hopkinson)

The Winterlong Trilogy (Elizabeth Hand) - Winterlong, Aestival Tide, Icarus Descending

Trouble the Saints (Alaya Dawn Johnson)

Where Late the Sweet Birds Sang (Kate Wilhelm)

Witch World: Estcarp Cycle (Andre Norton) - Trey of Swords, Ware Hawk, The Gate of the Cat
Witch World: High Hallack Cycle (Andre Norton) - The Jargoon Pard, Zarsthor's Bane, The Crystal Gryphon, Gryphon in Glory, Horn Crown
Catseye (Andre Norton)

A Woman of the Iron People (Eleanor Arnason)

Glimmering (Elizabeth Hand)
Wylding Hall (Elizabeth Hand)
Black Light (Elizabeth Hand)

Faux Apple Creator Studio

Now that Apple Creator Studio is out what do I have that (sort of) replicates it:

Pages: Create Documents
Numbers: Make Spreadsheets
Keynote: Design Presentations
  • These three don't need a replacement since they're still free to use with only a few features paywalled.

Final Cut Pro: Create Video
  • Apple's iMovie seems like the logical choice for amateur video creation

Logic Pro: Make Music
  • Apple's GarageBand is pretty nice though I only use it to record podcasts
  • Audacity - similar to GarageBand in terms of recording, I use it to compress my podcasts to 22kHz mono as Garageband doesn't have a way to compress it that low
  • Levelator v3 - great for leveling out podcast sound, though now only available on Archive.org

Pixelmator Pro: Edit Images
  • I have the old Pixelmator Pro from the Mac App Store. Might no longer get updates but for now it works fine.
  • Affinity Studio is free (subscription for AI features). It does pixel and vector graphics and page layout.

Motion: Animate Effects
  • Not sure if iMovie can do any of this.

Compressor: Encode Media
  • Handbrake is more of a way to encode video for different devices but along the way you can reduce file sizes.

MainStage: Perform Live
  • An unusual app that I don't have any alternative.