2K13 Books
And here’s the first in my annual year-end series of blogs on what amused me (or not) in 2013. First, books. They’re great. I read a lot more non-fiction and digital stuff this year. If that’s a trend, I don’t know what it means. Here’s the list:
Exogene (T.C. McCarthy), Ghosts of Onyx (Eric Nylund), Brotherhood of the Storm (Chris Wraight), Black Library Weekender 2012 Anthology Volume Two (Various), The Crimson Shadow (Una McCormack), Revelation and Dust (David R. George III), Angel Exterminatus (Graham McNeill), Betrayer (Aaron Dembski-Bowden), Mark of Calth (Various), Vaporware (Richard Dansky), Battleship (Peter David), A Ceremony of Losses (David Mack), Dragon Jet (David Axton), No Easy Day (Mark Owen with Kevin Maurer), Broken Homes (Ben Aaronovitch), Combat Ops ("David Michaels"), The Junior Officer's Reading Club (Patrick Hennessey), Peaceable Kingdoms (Dayton Ward), The Imperial Truth (Various), The Big Book of Flight (Rowland White), The Grey Man (Andy McNab), I, Jedi (Michael A. Stackpole), No Visible Horizon (Joshua Cooper Ramo), Corax: Soulforge (Gav Thorpe), H.A.W.X. ("Michaels"), Pacific Rim (Alex Irvine), Black Sky (William H. Lovejoy), The Con Job (Matt Forbeck), Yukikaze (Chohei Kambayashi), Vulkan Lives! (Nick Kyme), Locked On (Tom Clancy with Mark Greaney), Storm Front (White), Undersea Prison (Duncan Falconer), Blacklist Aftermath (Peter Telep), Federation: The First 150 Years (David A. Goodman).
Top picks of 2013 for me are non-fiction titles (even though one is actually fictional non-fiction) - Joshua Cooper Ramo’s hymn to stunt flying No Visible Horizon was a fast and compelling read; Rowland White’s celebratory Big Book of Flight is a lovely thing that is both contemporary and nostalgic, a must-have for aviation geeks; and David Goodman’s history of the United Federation of Planets is lush and a delight for an entirely different class of nerd. By contrast, the worst book I read this year was a digital title so turgid I deleted it after finishing it for fear it was actually sapping the life from me.
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Exogene (T.C. McCarthy), Ghosts of Onyx (Eric Nylund), Brotherhood of the Storm (Chris Wraight), Black Library Weekender 2012 Anthology Volume Two (Various), The Crimson Shadow (Una McCormack), Revelation and Dust (David R. George III), Angel Exterminatus (Graham McNeill), Betrayer (Aaron Dembski-Bowden), Mark of Calth (Various), Vaporware (Richard Dansky), Battleship (Peter David), A Ceremony of Losses (David Mack), Dragon Jet (David Axton), No Easy Day (Mark Owen with Kevin Maurer), Broken Homes (Ben Aaronovitch), Combat Ops ("David Michaels"), The Junior Officer's Reading Club (Patrick Hennessey), Peaceable Kingdoms (Dayton Ward), The Imperial Truth (Various), The Big Book of Flight (Rowland White), The Grey Man (Andy McNab), I, Jedi (Michael A. Stackpole), No Visible Horizon (Joshua Cooper Ramo), Corax: Soulforge (Gav Thorpe), H.A.W.X. ("Michaels"), Pacific Rim (Alex Irvine), Black Sky (William H. Lovejoy), The Con Job (Matt Forbeck), Yukikaze (Chohei Kambayashi), Vulkan Lives! (Nick Kyme), Locked On (Tom Clancy with Mark Greaney), Storm Front (White), Undersea Prison (Duncan Falconer), Blacklist Aftermath (Peter Telep), Federation: The First 150 Years (David A. Goodman).
Top picks of 2013 for me are non-fiction titles (even though one is actually fictional non-fiction) - Joshua Cooper Ramo’s hymn to stunt flying No Visible Horizon was a fast and compelling read; Rowland White’s celebratory Big Book of Flight is a lovely thing that is both contemporary and nostalgic, a must-have for aviation geeks; and David Goodman’s history of the United Federation of Planets is lush and a delight for an entirely different class of nerd. By contrast, the worst book I read this year was a digital title so turgid I deleted it after finishing it for fear it was actually sapping the life from me.
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