Books of 2011
I don't have a target goal or anything, just thought it would be cool to record what I'd read this year.
January:
01 - Flight, Volume 1 - Various Artists. This was the book I received in the Yuletide book exchange! And also demonstrates exactly what I love about anthologies (in any medium): even if there are some entries you don't particularly care for, there are always some that are beautiful. Like, 'Outside My Window' brought tears to my eyes. My eyes!
02 - Princess Academy - Shannon Hale Eh, cute enough story, I guess. More suitable for 8 or 9 year-olds than the supposed 14-year age of the protagonist. The ending came too quickly and was packaged far too neatly. I get the impression the author didn't think about worldbuilding too much, 'cause there's some stuff that doesn't make sense. There was a tertiary character I rolled my eyes at in the beginning (yay, my favorite cliche - she's fat and stupid, but she has a Kind Heart), but became pretty awesome by the end of the book.
03 - Star Prince Charlie - Poul Anderson & Gordon R Dickson Um. If you know me at all, you knew there was no way I was not going to buy a book about Scots... IN SPAAAAAAACE. It's a cute book. Poul Anderson is a pretty amazing worldbuilder, but the story is average, one we've seen a hundred times over. Nor is the lead character particularly endearing, which I think is its greatest failure -- you could compare Charlie to Skeeve from Robert Lynn Aspirin's Mythadventures series, and it would not be favorable to Charlie.
04 - The Middleman, Vol. 1: The Trade Paperback Imperative - Javier Grillo-Marxuach I KNOW, I KNOW. I can't believe I am finally reading this for the first time! But I had to resort to nefarious means to get ahold of the first volume (which is, wow, pretty much exactly the series pilot), but I already have the 2nd & 3rd volumes in hand.
05 - Undead & Unwed - MaryJanice Davidson Yeah, no. This book. Consent issues up the wazoo (and no, that wasn't a pun).
06 - Ghost Huntress Book 1: The Awakening - Marley Gibson Eh, it was all right. The main characters are 16, but it feels more appropriate for a 12 or 13 year old (and the thirteen year old sister felt like an 8 year old). Except there's an odd smattering of swears throughout the book (like 4 or 5 total), and one case of #@*#ing censorship. Also? A minor character is bulimic. And the reaction isn't, 'Wow, that poor girl has problems', it's 'Wow, what a narcissistic bitch!'
07 - Ghost Huntress Book 2: The Guidance - Marley Gibson The plot was more interesting in this one (It's not 'possession', it's 'opression'!), but the faux-teenspeak was WAY WORSE, ugh. And there were more comments about bulimia that could be triggery for someone with an eating disorder. :( I'm not going to seek out the rest of this series.
Februry:
08 - The Unicorn Trade - Karen & Poul Anderson Short stories and poems by either spouse, or sometimes both of them together. His lean more toward scifi, hers lean more toward fantasy. The poems are pretty dodgy, tbh. I was not a fan, and mostly just skipped them. Good stories, though!
09 - Danger City - Various Authors, Contemporary Press Self-described as "urban short fiction", that... pretty much says it all. I think there's a lot of pretention to being gritty and shocking, but most of the stories just come off as raunchy. There's a lot of attempts at "hardboiled detective" type stories, and a tilt toward the supernatural in several. The 'journal' of a superhero (which ends right as it looks like it's going somewhere), a zombie PI, a man who's dated a part-woman, part-gila monster. Actually, the gila monster story is the last in the book, and it's probably the best.
March:
10 - A Midsummer Tempest - Poul Anderson LOVED IT, OMG. So this book is an alternate universe in which everything Shakespeare wrote was real. And because Poul Anderson is Poul Anderson, it also features an England mid-Industrial Revolution... in the 1600's. I was excited that this book had a surprise!cameo by a character from my favorite Poul Anderson series, Operation Chaos/Operation Luna. The structure of the book has a lot of flavor of how plays are written (e.g. - the settings of 'scenes' are described in detail at the beginning of each scene, characters sometimes speak in rhyme & meter & on several occasions are given soliloquies), but it is not set in the format of a play, and it is not overly or obnoxiously done. But what I really want to talk about is the lead female, Jennifer, who is also my favorite character in the book. At first, she was an eye-rolling cliche that made me disappointed in Poul Anderson. But then her character just blossoms, and she really, really shines. Normally, the token female in a period adventure piece is the fair maiden who helps the captive prince escape... and that's pretty much the only action she sees, but still, he "couldn't do it without her". Not so in this case. Jennifer has a fuckton of agency in this story, and she comes through with her own daring escape (yes, that's right, she RESCUES HERSELF), and takes up the hero's quest while he has completely stalled out. Like, okay, the hero probably would have initially escaped even without her help, but even if he had, he really COULD NOT HAVE succeeded without her. The big climactic ending also had a surprising and interesting twist (I thought).
11 - The Peregrine - Poul Anderson An enjoyable little read. I got through it in just over 2 hours. Picked this one up, 'cause y'all know how much I enjoy travelers/drifter colony bums/whole races of people who live on ships... IN SPAAAAACE. The plot was intriguing (the characters not so much), but it seemed to come to a rather abrupt end.
January:
01 - Flight, Volume 1 - Various Artists. This was the book I received in the Yuletide book exchange! And also demonstrates exactly what I love about anthologies (in any medium): even if there are some entries you don't particularly care for, there are always some that are beautiful. Like, 'Outside My Window' brought tears to my eyes. My eyes!
02 - Princess Academy - Shannon Hale Eh, cute enough story, I guess. More suitable for 8 or 9 year-olds than the supposed 14-year age of the protagonist. The ending came too quickly and was packaged far too neatly. I get the impression the author didn't think about worldbuilding too much, 'cause there's some stuff that doesn't make sense. There was a tertiary character I rolled my eyes at in the beginning (yay, my favorite cliche - she's fat and stupid, but she has a Kind Heart), but became pretty awesome by the end of the book.
03 - Star Prince Charlie - Poul Anderson & Gordon R Dickson Um. If you know me at all, you knew there was no way I was not going to buy a book about Scots... IN SPAAAAAAACE. It's a cute book. Poul Anderson is a pretty amazing worldbuilder, but the story is average, one we've seen a hundred times over. Nor is the lead character particularly endearing, which I think is its greatest failure -- you could compare Charlie to Skeeve from Robert Lynn Aspirin's Mythadventures series, and it would not be favorable to Charlie.
04 - The Middleman, Vol. 1: The Trade Paperback Imperative - Javier Grillo-Marxuach I KNOW, I KNOW. I can't believe I am finally reading this for the first time! But I had to resort to nefarious means to get ahold of the first volume (which is, wow, pretty much exactly the series pilot), but I already have the 2nd & 3rd volumes in hand.
05 - Undead & Unwed - MaryJanice Davidson Yeah, no. This book. Consent issues up the wazoo (and no, that wasn't a pun).
06 - Ghost Huntress Book 1: The Awakening - Marley Gibson Eh, it was all right. The main characters are 16, but it feels more appropriate for a 12 or 13 year old (and the thirteen year old sister felt like an 8 year old). Except there's an odd smattering of swears throughout the book (like 4 or 5 total), and one case of #@*#ing censorship. Also? A minor character is bulimic. And the reaction isn't, 'Wow, that poor girl has problems', it's 'Wow, what a narcissistic bitch!'
07 - Ghost Huntress Book 2: The Guidance - Marley Gibson The plot was more interesting in this one (It's not 'possession', it's 'opression'!), but the faux-teenspeak was WAY WORSE, ugh. And there were more comments about bulimia that could be triggery for someone with an eating disorder. :( I'm not going to seek out the rest of this series.
Februry:
08 - The Unicorn Trade - Karen & Poul Anderson Short stories and poems by either spouse, or sometimes both of them together. His lean more toward scifi, hers lean more toward fantasy. The poems are pretty dodgy, tbh. I was not a fan, and mostly just skipped them. Good stories, though!
09 - Danger City - Various Authors, Contemporary Press Self-described as "urban short fiction", that... pretty much says it all. I think there's a lot of pretention to being gritty and shocking, but most of the stories just come off as raunchy. There's a lot of attempts at "hardboiled detective" type stories, and a tilt toward the supernatural in several. The 'journal' of a superhero (which ends right as it looks like it's going somewhere), a zombie PI, a man who's dated a part-woman, part-gila monster. Actually, the gila monster story is the last in the book, and it's probably the best.
March:
10 - A Midsummer Tempest - Poul Anderson LOVED IT, OMG. So this book is an alternate universe in which everything Shakespeare wrote was real. And because Poul Anderson is Poul Anderson, it also features an England mid-Industrial Revolution... in the 1600's. I was excited that this book had a surprise!cameo by a character from my favorite Poul Anderson series, Operation Chaos/Operation Luna. The structure of the book has a lot of flavor of how plays are written (e.g. - the settings of 'scenes' are described in detail at the beginning of each scene, characters sometimes speak in rhyme & meter & on several occasions are given soliloquies), but it is not set in the format of a play, and it is not overly or obnoxiously done. But what I really want to talk about is the lead female, Jennifer, who is also my favorite character in the book. At first, she was an eye-rolling cliche that made me disappointed in Poul Anderson. But then her character just blossoms, and she really, really shines. Normally, the token female in a period adventure piece is the fair maiden who helps the captive prince escape... and that's pretty much the only action she sees, but still, he "couldn't do it without her". Not so in this case. Jennifer has a fuckton of agency in this story, and she comes through with her own daring escape (yes, that's right, she RESCUES HERSELF), and takes up the hero's quest while he has completely stalled out. Like, okay, the hero probably would have initially escaped even without her help, but even if he had, he really COULD NOT HAVE succeeded without her. The big climactic ending also had a surprising and interesting twist (I thought).
11 - The Peregrine - Poul Anderson An enjoyable little read. I got through it in just over 2 hours. Picked this one up, 'cause y'all know how much I enjoy travelers/drifter colony bums/whole races of people who live on ships... IN SPAAAAACE. The plot was intriguing (the characters not so much), but it seemed to come to a rather abrupt end.