Books Read: October-December 2018
10/05 The Compleat Werewolf (Retro Hugo Nominee), Anthony Boucher
10/10 Good Omens, Pratchett & Gaimen (rr)
10/12 Hogfather (DW 20), Pratchett (rr)
10/15 Jingo (DW 21), Pratchett (rr)
10/20 The Last Continent (DW 22), Pratchett (rr)
10/21 Exit Strategy, Murderbot 4, Martha Wells
10/21 Rogue Protocol, Murderbot 3, Martha Wells
11/01 Mr. Penumbra’s 24 hour Book Store, Robin Sloan
11/21 Carpe Jugulum (DW 23), Pratchett (rr)
11/23 The Fifth Elephant (DW 24), Pratchett (rr)
12/02 Artemis Fowl, Eoin Coffler
12/05 Paladin of Souls, Lois McMasters Bujold
12/14 Russian Roulette, Michael Isikoff & David Korn
12/17 The Truth (DW 25), Pratchett (rr)
12/20 Midnight Riot (Rivers of London 1), Ben Aaronovitch
12/22 Thief of Time (DW 26), Pratchett (rr)
12/24 The Last Hero (DW 27), Pratchett (rr)
12/28 The Amazing Maurice and his Educated Rodents (DW 28), Pratchett (rr)
Seventeen books for the final quarter of 2018. No physical books completed though a few were progressed, ten of these seventeen were re-reads.
My total of the year is SEVENTY books read! I think that is a record for me: 2017 was 42, ‘16 48, ‘15 and ‘14 were 18 and 2013 was 19, 2012 was 41 and that was the first year that I kept tab. Of course this was a year that I started re-reading the entire output of Terry Pratchett, and I can knock-off a Discworld book in two days easily, so that helps.
39 books were re-reads, obviously lots of those were Pratchetts as I got up to #28 plus Good Omens and also re-read John Scalzi’s output. No physical books were included in this year’s count as this list is almost exclusively science fiction and fantasy. I did include Hugo nominations, but only novel and novella nominees.
On to commentary! And I’m going to combine the Discworld books together and also the two Murderbot stories together.
I’ll be doing a later post on what I think were the most notable reads of the year.
The Compleat Werewolf by Anthony Boucher was a Retro Hugo nominee. I didn’t have time to read the RH nominees and didn’t vote the categories, but the title got my attention and I went back to it, and it was a fun read! A guy decides to get himself turned into a werewolf. The man who does the turning has a keyword that will turn him back, and inconveniently gets himself killed. Mayhem ensues. It was a lot of fun, quite enjoyed it.
Good Omens, by Terry Pratchett & Neil Gaimen is a wonderful read. It’s the coming of the Anti-Christ and the end of the world, except an idiot apocalyptic nurse accidentally gave the child of Satan to a middle class accountant and his wife in England, rather than the world-traveling American diplomat to whom it was supposed to go. I love this book and am looking forward to seeing what they do with the TV show. It is one of the books that I was able to get signed by Sir Terry at the Discworld Con that I attended, now if I can catch Mr. Gaimen some time....
Exit Strategy and Rogue Protocol, Murderbot stories 4 and 3, by Martha Wells. If you haven’t read the four Murderbot stories, you owe yourself a treat. Set in a space-faring future, the murderbot is a security bot who had something happen to it and, contrary to programming, slaughtered a bunch of humans. It was supposedly reprogrammed, but figured out how to override his governor. He’s capable of killing humans, but he’s mainly interested in watching space dramas and has lots of hours stored to watch during those long space travels. I read the last two installments out of sequence, I’m not sure how. Anyway, in the first story, Murderbot saves the group to whom he was rented from a bunch of jerks who wanted to kill them all to destroy some proof of alien life so they could strip mine a planet. Murderbot learns of shenanigans of the corporation that owns him involving his murder spree, but is bought by the people to whom he was rented and freed from the corporation. He flees the people and goes on a quest to uncover enough evidence to destroy the corporation and in the third and fourth installments, not only finds many interesting things, but brings the whole story to one heck of a conclusion. Excellent stuff. Martha has won a few awards, and I expect her to win many more in the 2019 award season.
Mr. Penumbra’s 24 Hour Book Store. This book is contemporary/near future set in San Francisco in a somewhat dystopian post-crash where getting and keeping a job can be tough. One such out of work guy, Clay Jannon, a victim of a tech crash, sees a Help Wanted sign in the window of Mr. Penumbra’s 24 Hour Book Store, located next door to a strip club. It’s a completely legit book store, tall racks stretching back further than the eye can see. His employment test is showing that he has a fervor for books and then demonstrating that he can scale ladders like a monkey and quickly retrieve titles. They sell a small number of books, seemingly not nearly enough to keep the store afloat. For the important clients they are a lending library where a title is looked up in an ancient Apple Mac (remember the Fruit series?) which shows the location in the store, a card is shown authenticating the borrower, but a detailed description is made of the state of the person down to the type of buttons on their clothing: horn, ivory, plastic. And there is one rule: DO NOT look in the books that they check out! Just what sort of a place is Clay working in? A secret society? A cult? An outpatient asylum? It was a San Francisco Chronicle Top 100 for 2012 and a New York Times Editor’s Choice. Very interesting read, sort of like if Neil Stephenson were to write something set in a bookstore with a much smaller page count.
Artemis Fowl, Eoin Coffler. I had no interest in this YA series, especially after reading his treatment of Douglas Adams’ final notes that produced an alleged additional Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy book. It just wasn’t worth reading. I read about this book receiving a movie adaptation by Branaugh, saw the trailer, and thought I’d see about the book. Turned out it was available for free via Amazon Prime on Kindle, so I downloaded it and read it. Set in contemporary Ireland. The premise is the Fowl family are professional high-class criminals in Ireland. The current generation has problems. Father vanished, believed at the hands of the Russians. Mother is insane and confined to the attic. That leaves Artemis, a pre-teen mastermind genius. Protected by Butler and Butler’s extremely capable sister, Artemis learns of the existence of the faery realm and believes that with proper leverage applied, they might be able to help get his father back. This book is the first of the series wherein Artemis goes about trying to gain the upper hand on the faeries to find out what happened to his father and bring him home. It was good enough and I liked the trailer enough that I’ll see the movie, but I’m not going to bother reading the rest of the books in the series. YA’s might enjoy them, but they suffer too much from the Uber Competent Jack Ryan syndrome for my taste. I’ve lost my taste for that type of character.
Paladin of Souls is the second book of the Curse of Chalion series by Lois McMasters Bujold. I must have re-read the first book, Curse of Chalion, but I didn’t log it. Whatever. This book picks up very shortly after the end of the previous. It was awarded the Hugo, Locus, and Nebula. It’s pretty good. Isla, the former queen of Chalion, was somewhat insane in the previous book. After the Curse was lifted, she regained her sanity. Between books, her mother died and she has now decided that she needs to leave and go on walkabout. The best way to do this is to go on a pilgrimage. But nothing can be easy for a royal in Chalion, and trouble follows her. It’s quite a read, and every bit as interesting as Curse was. I haven’t yet read the next book, Hallowed Hunt, but am looking forward to it.
Russian Roulette, by Michael Isikoff & David Korn is decidedly not science fiction, and a certain resident at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington, DC wishes it were proven fiction. It’s the story of Donald J. Trump’s proven connections to Russia and Russian oligarchs. Isikoff and Korn put a lot into crafting this book including lots of hours with people working in the White House, speaking ‘on background’. It was not a book that I could sit down and read continuously, so it was read over several months.
Midnight Riot (Rivers of London 1) by Ben Aaronovitch. Ben has established quite a name for himself with the Rivers of London books, a series involving magic and police work in London. Peter Grant, a constable recently graduated from his training, is guarding the crime scene of a rather gruesome murder when he’s approached by a witness, who happens to be a ghost. Soon he’s given his assignment, and rather than getting a chance at investigatory work, he’s moved into case research, but rescued from it by England’s last officially sanctioned wizard, Detective Chief Inspector Thomas Nightingale. Peter becomes the first apprentice wizard in England in over 70 years and learns the truth in the saying ‘the world is not only stranger than you imagine, it’s stranger than you canimagine.’ My wife is a huge fan of the series, they’re very popular on AO3 and I’m looking forward to reading more.
Now in to the Discworld books! First up, number 20, Hogfather. The Auditors are back again, wanting to eliminate the pesky uncertainty of humanity. Having failed to eliminate Death, now they’re after other Incarnations, in this case, the Hogfather. Death can’t interfere, but there’s nothing saying his granddaughter can’t. And Susan Sto Lat is a formidable person - aside from being Death’s granddaughter and having certain abilities such as THE VOICE, she is a nanny and a school mistress - no one to be trifled with. Lots of fun! Jingo is The Watch off to stop a war. A lost continent rises from the ocean depths, and apparently the Ankh-Morporkians and the Klatchians aren’t aware that you really shouldn’t mess with Cthulhu and things that rise from the sea. Sam Vimes is determined to stop the fighting by arresting the idiotsofficers in charge of the whole mess. The Last Continent. Poor Rincewind. Lost in time, lost in space, and meaning. He ends up in pre-historic Discworld’s Australia analogue and, as is usual in Rincewind stories, mayhem ensues. Carpe Jugulum we see the first appearance of Igor, or perhaps it was his cousin, Igor. King Verance of Lancre accidentally invites a vampire family to the naming of his daughter, great trouble ensues when the invitation of Granny Weatherwax is not delivered! Aside from previous mention of Lord Vetinari’s ‘friend’, Queen Margolotta, this is probably the first major appearance of vampires aside from Dragon King of Arms who was the Chief Herald as seen in Feet of Clay, masterminding a plot to poison and replace Vetinari. Absolutely love the Omnian Priest Mightily Oats, I really should take a look at AO3 and see if there’s any fanfic love for him. The Fifth Elephant is Vimes-heavy and brings him and Sybil as his role of Duke to Uberwald to negotiate new fat contracts between the soon to be crowned Low King of the Dwarves and Ankh-Morpork. A murder happens, and Vimes of the Watch is on the case! The Truth introduces the printing press, and the de Worde family to Ankh-Morpork. Traditionally, the wizards and Unseen University would not tolerate the printing press as who knew what could happen if metal used to print a spell book were then reused to print a cook book! Much chaos happens, of course, as much chaos happens in pretty much every Discworld book. I was a little confused initially as I thought Moist von Lipwig was associated with The Truth, but I was mistaken - he doesn’t come in until Going Postal. Still, the introduction of the press and news reporting causes quite a stir in Ankh-Morpork and it’s a good read. Thief of Time features the return of Death’s nemesis: The Auditors. They’ve found a human capable of stopping time, and another man capable of stopping him, the latter is training to be a history monk under the venerable Lu Tze, the humble sweeper. The Last Hero features the last hurrah of Cohen the Barbarian and his octogenarian horde, who have decided to go out with a bang and return ‘fire’ to the Gods, in this case in the form of several hundred pounds of high explosives. The wizards in Ankh-Morpork pronounce that this could destroy the world, thus an expedition is literally launched with Leonard of Quirm, Captain Carrot, and poor, poor Rincewind to stop them. Very fun stuff, especially the bard who finds his spine, along with others. The Amazing Maurice and his Educated Rodents I basically didn’t remember at all! It’s a take on the Pied Piper tale, but in a Discworld fashion. With the exception of an appearance of Death of Rats and references to other locations, there’s little in this story to set it in DW. Excellent story, good intro for kiddies. Makes rats very sympathetic. The wife of a friend is a mouse tender at National Institutes of Health: her job is the care and tending of laboratory mice. And she says rats are infinitely better pets.
This entry was originally posted at https://thewayne.dreamwidth.org/1112976.html. Please comment there using OpenID.
10/10 Good Omens, Pratchett & Gaimen (rr)
10/12 Hogfather (DW 20), Pratchett (rr)
10/15 Jingo (DW 21), Pratchett (rr)
10/20 The Last Continent (DW 22), Pratchett (rr)
10/21 Exit Strategy, Murderbot 4, Martha Wells
10/21 Rogue Protocol, Murderbot 3, Martha Wells
11/01 Mr. Penumbra’s 24 hour Book Store, Robin Sloan
11/21 Carpe Jugulum (DW 23), Pratchett (rr)
11/23 The Fifth Elephant (DW 24), Pratchett (rr)
12/02 Artemis Fowl, Eoin Coffler
12/05 Paladin of Souls, Lois McMasters Bujold
12/14 Russian Roulette, Michael Isikoff & David Korn
12/17 The Truth (DW 25), Pratchett (rr)
12/20 Midnight Riot (Rivers of London 1), Ben Aaronovitch
12/22 Thief of Time (DW 26), Pratchett (rr)
12/24 The Last Hero (DW 27), Pratchett (rr)
12/28 The Amazing Maurice and his Educated Rodents (DW 28), Pratchett (rr)
Seventeen books for the final quarter of 2018. No physical books completed though a few were progressed, ten of these seventeen were re-reads.
My total of the year is SEVENTY books read! I think that is a record for me: 2017 was 42, ‘16 48, ‘15 and ‘14 were 18 and 2013 was 19, 2012 was 41 and that was the first year that I kept tab. Of course this was a year that I started re-reading the entire output of Terry Pratchett, and I can knock-off a Discworld book in two days easily, so that helps.
39 books were re-reads, obviously lots of those were Pratchetts as I got up to #28 plus Good Omens and also re-read John Scalzi’s output. No physical books were included in this year’s count as this list is almost exclusively science fiction and fantasy. I did include Hugo nominations, but only novel and novella nominees.
On to commentary! And I’m going to combine the Discworld books together and also the two Murderbot stories together.
I’ll be doing a later post on what I think were the most notable reads of the year.
The Compleat Werewolf by Anthony Boucher was a Retro Hugo nominee. I didn’t have time to read the RH nominees and didn’t vote the categories, but the title got my attention and I went back to it, and it was a fun read! A guy decides to get himself turned into a werewolf. The man who does the turning has a keyword that will turn him back, and inconveniently gets himself killed. Mayhem ensues. It was a lot of fun, quite enjoyed it.
Good Omens, by Terry Pratchett & Neil Gaimen is a wonderful read. It’s the coming of the Anti-Christ and the end of the world, except an idiot apocalyptic nurse accidentally gave the child of Satan to a middle class accountant and his wife in England, rather than the world-traveling American diplomat to whom it was supposed to go. I love this book and am looking forward to seeing what they do with the TV show. It is one of the books that I was able to get signed by Sir Terry at the Discworld Con that I attended, now if I can catch Mr. Gaimen some time....
Exit Strategy and Rogue Protocol, Murderbot stories 4 and 3, by Martha Wells. If you haven’t read the four Murderbot stories, you owe yourself a treat. Set in a space-faring future, the murderbot is a security bot who had something happen to it and, contrary to programming, slaughtered a bunch of humans. It was supposedly reprogrammed, but figured out how to override his governor. He’s capable of killing humans, but he’s mainly interested in watching space dramas and has lots of hours stored to watch during those long space travels. I read the last two installments out of sequence, I’m not sure how. Anyway, in the first story, Murderbot saves the group to whom he was rented from a bunch of jerks who wanted to kill them all to destroy some proof of alien life so they could strip mine a planet. Murderbot learns of shenanigans of the corporation that owns him involving his murder spree, but is bought by the people to whom he was rented and freed from the corporation. He flees the people and goes on a quest to uncover enough evidence to destroy the corporation and in the third and fourth installments, not only finds many interesting things, but brings the whole story to one heck of a conclusion. Excellent stuff. Martha has won a few awards, and I expect her to win many more in the 2019 award season.
Mr. Penumbra’s 24 Hour Book Store. This book is contemporary/near future set in San Francisco in a somewhat dystopian post-crash where getting and keeping a job can be tough. One such out of work guy, Clay Jannon, a victim of a tech crash, sees a Help Wanted sign in the window of Mr. Penumbra’s 24 Hour Book Store, located next door to a strip club. It’s a completely legit book store, tall racks stretching back further than the eye can see. His employment test is showing that he has a fervor for books and then demonstrating that he can scale ladders like a monkey and quickly retrieve titles. They sell a small number of books, seemingly not nearly enough to keep the store afloat. For the important clients they are a lending library where a title is looked up in an ancient Apple Mac (remember the Fruit series?) which shows the location in the store, a card is shown authenticating the borrower, but a detailed description is made of the state of the person down to the type of buttons on their clothing: horn, ivory, plastic. And there is one rule: DO NOT look in the books that they check out! Just what sort of a place is Clay working in? A secret society? A cult? An outpatient asylum? It was a San Francisco Chronicle Top 100 for 2012 and a New York Times Editor’s Choice. Very interesting read, sort of like if Neil Stephenson were to write something set in a bookstore with a much smaller page count.
Artemis Fowl, Eoin Coffler. I had no interest in this YA series, especially after reading his treatment of Douglas Adams’ final notes that produced an alleged additional Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy book. It just wasn’t worth reading. I read about this book receiving a movie adaptation by Branaugh, saw the trailer, and thought I’d see about the book. Turned out it was available for free via Amazon Prime on Kindle, so I downloaded it and read it. Set in contemporary Ireland. The premise is the Fowl family are professional high-class criminals in Ireland. The current generation has problems. Father vanished, believed at the hands of the Russians. Mother is insane and confined to the attic. That leaves Artemis, a pre-teen mastermind genius. Protected by Butler and Butler’s extremely capable sister, Artemis learns of the existence of the faery realm and believes that with proper leverage applied, they might be able to help get his father back. This book is the first of the series wherein Artemis goes about trying to gain the upper hand on the faeries to find out what happened to his father and bring him home. It was good enough and I liked the trailer enough that I’ll see the movie, but I’m not going to bother reading the rest of the books in the series. YA’s might enjoy them, but they suffer too much from the Uber Competent Jack Ryan syndrome for my taste. I’ve lost my taste for that type of character.
Paladin of Souls is the second book of the Curse of Chalion series by Lois McMasters Bujold. I must have re-read the first book, Curse of Chalion, but I didn’t log it. Whatever. This book picks up very shortly after the end of the previous. It was awarded the Hugo, Locus, and Nebula. It’s pretty good. Isla, the former queen of Chalion, was somewhat insane in the previous book. After the Curse was lifted, she regained her sanity. Between books, her mother died and she has now decided that she needs to leave and go on walkabout. The best way to do this is to go on a pilgrimage. But nothing can be easy for a royal in Chalion, and trouble follows her. It’s quite a read, and every bit as interesting as Curse was. I haven’t yet read the next book, Hallowed Hunt, but am looking forward to it.
Russian Roulette, by Michael Isikoff & David Korn is decidedly not science fiction, and a certain resident at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington, DC wishes it were proven fiction. It’s the story of Donald J. Trump’s proven connections to Russia and Russian oligarchs. Isikoff and Korn put a lot into crafting this book including lots of hours with people working in the White House, speaking ‘on background’. It was not a book that I could sit down and read continuously, so it was read over several months.
Midnight Riot (Rivers of London 1) by Ben Aaronovitch. Ben has established quite a name for himself with the Rivers of London books, a series involving magic and police work in London. Peter Grant, a constable recently graduated from his training, is guarding the crime scene of a rather gruesome murder when he’s approached by a witness, who happens to be a ghost. Soon he’s given his assignment, and rather than getting a chance at investigatory work, he’s moved into case research, but rescued from it by England’s last officially sanctioned wizard, Detective Chief Inspector Thomas Nightingale. Peter becomes the first apprentice wizard in England in over 70 years and learns the truth in the saying ‘the world is not only stranger than you imagine, it’s stranger than you canimagine.’ My wife is a huge fan of the series, they’re very popular on AO3 and I’m looking forward to reading more.
Now in to the Discworld books! First up, number 20, Hogfather. The Auditors are back again, wanting to eliminate the pesky uncertainty of humanity. Having failed to eliminate Death, now they’re after other Incarnations, in this case, the Hogfather. Death can’t interfere, but there’s nothing saying his granddaughter can’t. And Susan Sto Lat is a formidable person - aside from being Death’s granddaughter and having certain abilities such as THE VOICE, she is a nanny and a school mistress - no one to be trifled with. Lots of fun! Jingo is The Watch off to stop a war. A lost continent rises from the ocean depths, and apparently the Ankh-Morporkians and the Klatchians aren’t aware that you really shouldn’t mess with Cthulhu and things that rise from the sea. Sam Vimes is determined to stop the fighting by arresting the idiotsofficers in charge of the whole mess. The Last Continent. Poor Rincewind. Lost in time, lost in space, and meaning. He ends up in pre-historic Discworld’s Australia analogue and, as is usual in Rincewind stories, mayhem ensues. Carpe Jugulum we see the first appearance of Igor, or perhaps it was his cousin, Igor. King Verance of Lancre accidentally invites a vampire family to the naming of his daughter, great trouble ensues when the invitation of Granny Weatherwax is not delivered! Aside from previous mention of Lord Vetinari’s ‘friend’, Queen Margolotta, this is probably the first major appearance of vampires aside from Dragon King of Arms who was the Chief Herald as seen in Feet of Clay, masterminding a plot to poison and replace Vetinari. Absolutely love the Omnian Priest Mightily Oats, I really should take a look at AO3 and see if there’s any fanfic love for him. The Fifth Elephant is Vimes-heavy and brings him and Sybil as his role of Duke to Uberwald to negotiate new fat contracts between the soon to be crowned Low King of the Dwarves and Ankh-Morpork. A murder happens, and Vimes of the Watch is on the case! The Truth introduces the printing press, and the de Worde family to Ankh-Morpork. Traditionally, the wizards and Unseen University would not tolerate the printing press as who knew what could happen if metal used to print a spell book were then reused to print a cook book! Much chaos happens, of course, as much chaos happens in pretty much every Discworld book. I was a little confused initially as I thought Moist von Lipwig was associated with The Truth, but I was mistaken - he doesn’t come in until Going Postal. Still, the introduction of the press and news reporting causes quite a stir in Ankh-Morpork and it’s a good read. Thief of Time features the return of Death’s nemesis: The Auditors. They’ve found a human capable of stopping time, and another man capable of stopping him, the latter is training to be a history monk under the venerable Lu Tze, the humble sweeper. The Last Hero features the last hurrah of Cohen the Barbarian and his octogenarian horde, who have decided to go out with a bang and return ‘fire’ to the Gods, in this case in the form of several hundred pounds of high explosives. The wizards in Ankh-Morpork pronounce that this could destroy the world, thus an expedition is literally launched with Leonard of Quirm, Captain Carrot, and poor, poor Rincewind to stop them. Very fun stuff, especially the bard who finds his spine, along with others. The Amazing Maurice and his Educated Rodents I basically didn’t remember at all! It’s a take on the Pied Piper tale, but in a Discworld fashion. With the exception of an appearance of Death of Rats and references to other locations, there’s little in this story to set it in DW. Excellent story, good intro for kiddies. Makes rats very sympathetic. The wife of a friend is a mouse tender at National Institutes of Health: her job is the care and tending of laboratory mice. And she says rats are infinitely better pets.
This entry was originally posted at https://thewayne.dreamwidth.org/1112976.html. Please comment there using OpenID.