More books from this year
Well, I broke the cycle with a few actual posts last month, but this time I'm going back to my old habit of just using LJ as my own personal library card. Here's my latest list of books read for this year. I think I'm at 33 total, and it's mid May. I have no concept of how I am doing it this quickly, other than that the dead-tree books I'm reading are by and large very short, and the majority of the books are audio. It's a fun ride. Wheee!
Here's the list:
@Crucible of Gold - His Majesty's Dragon was a fabulous novel about Dragons in the Napoleonic Wars, being fought in and around Europe. Since that book, in the sequels, the characters have gone to China, crossed Asia, toured Africa, raced across Australia, and are now racing across South America. I feel like the first book in this series was the best, reaching soaring great heights, and each subsequent one has been less than the one preceding it. So sad to watch characters and concept grow stale. Again, like the most recent other Termeraire books, the world-building is phenomenal, and the plot more or less follows well from the previous ones, but all in all, not a great addition to the series. The last 2 books have felt very much like their purpose was travelogues of Novik's world-building rather than actual plots or character arcs. And what's worse, the end of this book very specifically sets up the next book for yet another travelogue, this time to North America. This was book seven of a proposed 9. Presumably book 8 is crossing North America, finally returning Temeraire, Lawrence, and their cohorts to England, with book 9 then being Temeraire's triumphant defeat of Napoleon at Waterloo. I miss the days of Temeraire having a full crew, and dynamic aerial battles with full wings of armed dragons. Show me some more of those fighting scenes, and less of the travelogue, and I will be happy. I am assuming therefore that book 8 will be another disappointment, and book 9 will give me one final taste of the greatness that was the first book, and then the series will be over, leaving me acheing for the lost opportunities of five or six of the books in between. Not recommended, unless you are heavily invested in the characters.
@Bonk - So sad. I had to put the book down a quarter of the way through, I was so fed up. I don't know if it was the author's voice, or the narrator's, but the tone of the book was grating and jarring. She went to all hte trouble of writing a Foreword lamenting that so few scientists have studied sex and sexuality openly because lay people may cast them as perverts or aberrant weirdos, and then she spends the next three chapters gleefully reveling in all of the aberrant weirdos and perverts that studied it. There was too much over-exaggerated knowing wink at the reader for me to stomach. Very Heavily Disrecommended.
@Kitty Goes to War and @Kitty's Big Trouble - The Kitty series is great, and I am thoroughly enjoying it. The books are fast, fun reads. In Kitty Goes to War, there was some great development on Cormac's character, which I received happily, and in Kitty's Big Trouble (a nod to Big Trouble in Little China), Kitty gets embroiled as a third party in a fight between 2 powerful factions, taking place in San Fran's Chinatown, sorta. Good, solid additions to the series, if not jumping up and down awesome. Looking forward to where she takes the series next. Recommended if you read the series, if you don't, I'd say you'd be better served starting with Kitty's Midnight Hour.
@Old Man's War - Wow did I love this book. It wasn't quite on par with Ender's Game, but it wasn't a whole helluva way behind it either. This was great. I am not even sure why, other than the sheer wow factor. I devoured it, and fast! Very Highly Recommended.
@The Colour of Magic, and @The Light Fantastic - Meh. I love Terry Pratchett's Discword series, and I adore his sense of humor. The later books in the series are all favorites of mine, so I decided to go back and start from the beginning, reading the series in somewhat chronological order. The snag is, the first books in the series were written as send-ups of the type of fantasy novels (Tolklones) being published at the time. I didn't have much of an appreciation for that style of novel, and so I found these two (two parts of a single whole) to be rather tedious and uninspiring. That said, I very much liked the Luggage. Recommended, but not as much as his later work.
@The Mauritius Command, @Desolation Island, @The Fortune of War, @The Surgeon's Mate, and The Ionain Mission - So, as usual, a note first about the narrator(s) of this series. Patrick O'Brian wrote 20 (and a half) Aubrey/Matchurin books before his death, and only 2 men have narrated all 20, Patrick Tull, and Simon Vance. I listened to Tull narrating the first 5 books of the series, because those were the versions my library had. For Desolation Island, I could only get a hold of the Simon Vance version. He is a highly capable narrator, but has no concept of the characters in this particular series (and his women's voices were shrill and painful). For example, One of the 2 main characters, Dr. Stephen Matchurin, is a highly respected, highly intelligent Physician and Naturalist, as well as a British Spy, and grew up predominantly in Ireland. As such, Tull narrates his as being thoughtful, humorous, and with a decided Irish accent. Vance narrates him as a thuggish Peter Lorre on quaaludes. It goes on from there. Not my style. So, as much as humanly possible, I plan to stick with the AMAZING narration of Patrick Tull for the rest of the series.
As for the books themselves, I am really liking them a LOT! I never had any interest in the Royal Navy and the Age of Sail in the past, but after reading some of these books, I am hooked on it! I am so sad that I squandered opportunities to really closely look at the USS Constitution in Boston Harbor in the past. It really meant nothing to me back then. But now, I really want to wander it's decks, take in the feel of the ship, and smell it, just to get closer to this world. It's not one I ever want to have lived in, but I want to experience it vicariously again and again.
O'Brian is masterful at wry humor, and his characters are amazing and vivid. The first few books in the series were more or less stand-alone adventures, but now we're getting into books that very much immediately follow the previous books in terms of consequences and plots. It's amazing how well he is weaving his fictional narrative in with the actual Napoleonic Wars. Very Highly Recommended, but Read them in Order!
The Alloy of Law - Oh, Brandon Sanderson, how you do tease me. You create a fascinating world full of an amazing magic system that defies adequate description, and you populate that world with amazing characters. You write a phenomenal book set in that world, and follow it with two mediocre sequels. You then make me read two other novels set in very different worlds you creted, hoping to find more of that spark, but both of those are pathetic. Then, you mightily take up the mantle of sadly departed Robert Jordan, valiantly trying to finish his masterful epic, doing well, with fabulous source material and wonderous summing up of countless plot-threads, but not quite hitting the mark in prose. Then you yank me back to that very first, sparkling wondrous world, and you outdo yourself. I loved Alloy of Law. Sure, it was short (by Sanderson's standards). Sure, it was by no means perfect, and a little transparent (I guessed both of the big reveals less than a quarter of the way through the book), but my oh my, how you knocked the 'sensawunda' out of the park. Again, I am thrilled to see how you've literally worked magic on your magic system, as well as giving me characters I actually enjoyed. Wayne started out rough for me, someone I really expected to loathe against the author's best intentions, but I wound up really enjoying him. I really liked this book a lot. Recommended. Reading the original series isn't required, but it will help give context to this book, and there are small bits of this that give insights into the eventual fates of characters in the first trilogy.
No worries,
Matt
Here's the list:
- A Wrinkle In Time, by Madeleine L'Engle
- Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter, by Seth Grahame-Smith
- Moonwalking with Einstein: The Art and Science of Remembering Everything, by Joshua Foer
- The Hunger Games, by Suzanne Collins, Read by Carolyn McCormick
- Catching Fire, by Suzanne Collins, Read by Carolyn McCormick
- Mockingjay, by Suzanne Collins, Read by Carolyn McCormick
- Kitty and the Silver Bullet, by Carrie Vaughn
- The Forgotten 500, by Gregory A. Freeman, read by Patrick Lawlor
- Blackout, by Connie Willis
- Master and Commander, by Patrick O'Brian, read by Patrick Tull
- 11/22/63, by Stephen King, Read by Craig Wasson
- Feed, by Mira Grant
- Deadline, by Mira Grant
- Kitty and the Dead Man's Hand, by Carrie Vaughn
- Kitty Raises Hell, by Carrie Vaughn
- Kitty's House of Horrors, by Carrie Vaughn
- The Leftovers, by Tom Perrotta, narrated by Dennis Boutsikaris
- All Clear, by Connie Willis
- Post Captain, by Patrick O'Brian, narrated by Patrick Tull
- H.M.S. Surprise, by Patrick O'Brian, narrated by Patrick Tull
- Crucible of Gold, by Naomi Novik
- Bonk: The Curious Coupling of Science and Sex, by Mary Roach, narrated by Sandra Burr
- Kitty Goes to War, by
- The Mauritius Command, by Patrick O'Brian, narrated by Patrick Tull
- Old Man's War, by
- The Color of Magic, by
- The Light Fantastic, by
- Desolation Island, by Patrick O'Brian, narrated by Simon Vance
- The Fortune of War, by Patrick O'Brian, narrated by Patrick Tull
- The Surgeon's Mate, by Patrick O'Brian, narrated by Patrick Tull
- Kitty's Big Trouble, by Carrie Vaughn
- The Ionian Mission, by Patrick O'Brian, narrated by Patrick Tull
- The Alloy of Law, by Brandon Sanderson, narrated by Michael Kramer
- Moonwalking with Einstein: The Art and Science of Remembering Everything, by Joshua Foer
@Crucible of Gold - His Majesty's Dragon was a fabulous novel about Dragons in the Napoleonic Wars, being fought in and around Europe. Since that book, in the sequels, the characters have gone to China, crossed Asia, toured Africa, raced across Australia, and are now racing across South America. I feel like the first book in this series was the best, reaching soaring great heights, and each subsequent one has been less than the one preceding it. So sad to watch characters and concept grow stale. Again, like the most recent other Termeraire books, the world-building is phenomenal, and the plot more or less follows well from the previous ones, but all in all, not a great addition to the series. The last 2 books have felt very much like their purpose was travelogues of Novik's world-building rather than actual plots or character arcs. And what's worse, the end of this book very specifically sets up the next book for yet another travelogue, this time to North America. This was book seven of a proposed 9. Presumably book 8 is crossing North America, finally returning Temeraire, Lawrence, and their cohorts to England, with book 9 then being Temeraire's triumphant defeat of Napoleon at Waterloo. I miss the days of Temeraire having a full crew, and dynamic aerial battles with full wings of armed dragons. Show me some more of those fighting scenes, and less of the travelogue, and I will be happy. I am assuming therefore that book 8 will be another disappointment, and book 9 will give me one final taste of the greatness that was the first book, and then the series will be over, leaving me acheing for the lost opportunities of five or six of the books in between. Not recommended, unless you are heavily invested in the characters.
@Bonk - So sad. I had to put the book down a quarter of the way through, I was so fed up. I don't know if it was the author's voice, or the narrator's, but the tone of the book was grating and jarring. She went to all hte trouble of writing a Foreword lamenting that so few scientists have studied sex and sexuality openly because lay people may cast them as perverts or aberrant weirdos, and then she spends the next three chapters gleefully reveling in all of the aberrant weirdos and perverts that studied it. There was too much over-exaggerated knowing wink at the reader for me to stomach. Very Heavily Disrecommended.
@Kitty Goes to War and @Kitty's Big Trouble - The Kitty series is great, and I am thoroughly enjoying it. The books are fast, fun reads. In Kitty Goes to War, there was some great development on Cormac's character, which I received happily, and in Kitty's Big Trouble (a nod to Big Trouble in Little China), Kitty gets embroiled as a third party in a fight between 2 powerful factions, taking place in San Fran's Chinatown, sorta. Good, solid additions to the series, if not jumping up and down awesome. Looking forward to where she takes the series next. Recommended if you read the series, if you don't, I'd say you'd be better served starting with Kitty's Midnight Hour.
@Old Man's War - Wow did I love this book. It wasn't quite on par with Ender's Game, but it wasn't a whole helluva way behind it either. This was great. I am not even sure why, other than the sheer wow factor. I devoured it, and fast! Very Highly Recommended.
@The Colour of Magic, and @The Light Fantastic - Meh. I love Terry Pratchett's Discword series, and I adore his sense of humor. The later books in the series are all favorites of mine, so I decided to go back and start from the beginning, reading the series in somewhat chronological order. The snag is, the first books in the series were written as send-ups of the type of fantasy novels (Tolklones) being published at the time. I didn't have much of an appreciation for that style of novel, and so I found these two (two parts of a single whole) to be rather tedious and uninspiring. That said, I very much liked the Luggage. Recommended, but not as much as his later work.
@The Mauritius Command, @Desolation Island, @The Fortune of War, @The Surgeon's Mate, and The Ionain Mission - So, as usual, a note first about the narrator(s) of this series. Patrick O'Brian wrote 20 (and a half) Aubrey/Matchurin books before his death, and only 2 men have narrated all 20, Patrick Tull, and Simon Vance. I listened to Tull narrating the first 5 books of the series, because those were the versions my library had. For Desolation Island, I could only get a hold of the Simon Vance version. He is a highly capable narrator, but has no concept of the characters in this particular series (and his women's voices were shrill and painful). For example, One of the 2 main characters, Dr. Stephen Matchurin, is a highly respected, highly intelligent Physician and Naturalist, as well as a British Spy, and grew up predominantly in Ireland. As such, Tull narrates his as being thoughtful, humorous, and with a decided Irish accent. Vance narrates him as a thuggish Peter Lorre on quaaludes. It goes on from there. Not my style. So, as much as humanly possible, I plan to stick with the AMAZING narration of Patrick Tull for the rest of the series.
As for the books themselves, I am really liking them a LOT! I never had any interest in the Royal Navy and the Age of Sail in the past, but after reading some of these books, I am hooked on it! I am so sad that I squandered opportunities to really closely look at the USS Constitution in Boston Harbor in the past. It really meant nothing to me back then. But now, I really want to wander it's decks, take in the feel of the ship, and smell it, just to get closer to this world. It's not one I ever want to have lived in, but I want to experience it vicariously again and again.
O'Brian is masterful at wry humor, and his characters are amazing and vivid. The first few books in the series were more or less stand-alone adventures, but now we're getting into books that very much immediately follow the previous books in terms of consequences and plots. It's amazing how well he is weaving his fictional narrative in with the actual Napoleonic Wars. Very Highly Recommended, but Read them in Order!
The Alloy of Law - Oh, Brandon Sanderson, how you do tease me. You create a fascinating world full of an amazing magic system that defies adequate description, and you populate that world with amazing characters. You write a phenomenal book set in that world, and follow it with two mediocre sequels. You then make me read two other novels set in very different worlds you creted, hoping to find more of that spark, but both of those are pathetic. Then, you mightily take up the mantle of sadly departed Robert Jordan, valiantly trying to finish his masterful epic, doing well, with fabulous source material and wonderous summing up of countless plot-threads, but not quite hitting the mark in prose. Then you yank me back to that very first, sparkling wondrous world, and you outdo yourself. I loved Alloy of Law. Sure, it was short (by Sanderson's standards). Sure, it was by no means perfect, and a little transparent (I guessed both of the big reveals less than a quarter of the way through the book), but my oh my, how you knocked the 'sensawunda' out of the park. Again, I am thrilled to see how you've literally worked magic on your magic system, as well as giving me characters I actually enjoyed. Wayne started out rough for me, someone I really expected to loathe against the author's best intentions, but I wound up really enjoying him. I really liked this book a lot. Recommended. Reading the original series isn't required, but it will help give context to this book, and there are small bits of this that give insights into the eventual fates of characters in the first trilogy.
No worries,
Matt